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U.S. And Iran Are Climbing Up The Escalation Ladder Again
Reason2Resist with Dimitri Lascaris
May 28, 2026

On May 27, the U.S. military launched strikes on the airport of Bandar Abbas, the largest Iranian City on the Strait of Hormuz.

In the early hours of May 28, Iran responded by attacking a U.S. military base in Kuwait.

This is the first time since the ceasefire went into effect between Iran and the U.S. that Iran has attacked a U.S. military base in the Persian Gulf.

Dimitri Lascaris examines the competing accounts of how this latest flare-up of violence began. He also discusses the reaction of oil traders to these developments, and the worsening crisis in global oil markets.



Transcript

Good day. This is Dimitri Lascaris coming to you for Reason to Resist from Kamata, Greece on May 28th, 2026.
Well, within the past , the Trump regime has engaged in yet another escalation in the Strait of Hormuz and
did so again at a time when it purports to be seeking a peace deal with Iran.
This of course is entirely consistent with the repeated theme of our reporting on this conflict which is that the Trump
regime has no interest in peace. Uh that this is nothing but a charade designed to suppress the price of oil and to
convince the world and especially US voters that the Trump regime is doing everything it can giving it the old college try to try to avoid further
armed conflict. But yet we see as we have within the past that it repeatedly behaves in ways that are
profoundly contrary with its uh stated objectives. So as to what happened last night, let's begin with the uh account
of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps uh and then we'll turn to the account of the US military. This is a report or a
summary of uh a statement made by the RE IRGC Navy. This summary appeared on Geopolitics Prime, a Telegram channel
that I follow. And um the Geopolitics Prime uh uh moderator said that the
totally destroyed Iranian Navy forced a US tanker to turn back. Uh the report coming from the IRGC Navy is that a US
oil tanker allegedly tried to sneak through the street of Hormuz with its radar system switched off. Uh this is based on a military source speaking to
the Iranian media outlet Tasnim. The IRGC Navy reportedly spotted it, fired warning shots, and forced the vessel to
stop and turn back. The US then responded by striking what the source described as a scorched area near Bandar
Abbas uh and specifically the Bandar Abbas airport and uh the IRGC uh states that there were no casualties
and no damage. And then uh later on we got an official statement from the IRGC uh and it said that following an early
morning attack by the US on a point near Bandad Ababas airport using projectiles today. The IRGC retaliated against a US air base from which the attack
originated at 4:50 a.m. This response is a serious warning so that the enemy knows aggression will not go unanswered.
If it is repeated, our response will be more decisive. The responsibility for the consequences lies with the aggressor. Now here is what sentcom and
this is the uh segment of the United States military uh that is uh responsible for the region of West Asia.
It put out a statement as follows at 10:17 p.m. uh Eastern time. So this would be approximately
uh the time that the IRGC said it launched a missile at the US military base at Kuwait. uh Iran launched a
ballistic missile toward Kuwait that was successfully intercepted by Kuwaiti forces. Of course, there's been no uh
footage revealed which uh suggests that this is true. Uh but at the end of the day, uh I'm not in a position to say whether it is or is not true. And the
Sencom statement goes on and says, "This egregious ceasefire violation by the Iranian regime occurred hours after Iranian forces launched five one-way
attack drones that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz.
Notice that it doesn't say to whom the threat was posed. Setcom just says a threat. A threat to whom. Uh it doesn't
mention that a US oil tanker tried to pass through the street of Hormuz reportedly uh without the consent of the
Iranian military. And then the uh US uh sentcom says that all drones were successfully intercepted
uh by US forces which also prevented a sixth drone launch from an Iranian ground control site in Bander Abbas.
US Central Command and regional partners remained vigilant and measured as we continue to defend our forces and interests from unjustified Iranian aggression. Now, let's just recall the
context here, my friends. The context is that the United States and Israel have launched a war of aggression. No lawful
justification for this war that began on February 28th. It follows another war in June of last year, the 12-day war, which
they also launched in violation of the UN charter with no lawful justification against Iran. They've killed thousands of civilians in Iran. They've probably
caused tens of billions of dollars worth of damage to uh Iranian infrastructure.
They're doing everything they can to destroy the Iranian economy. All of this in violation of international law.
There's no question that the US poses an existential threat to Iran as does Israel with its nuclear arsenal and the
full backing of the United States and other Western countries as well. So, uh it is entirely understandable that the Iranians would say we're not going to
allow any US vessels, whether they be commercial, purportedly commercial or obviously military, through the Straight of Hormuz uh because we don't trust you.
We don't want any vessels that are associated with the United States going through the straight of Hormuz while you are engaged in a war of aggression
against us. Uh and yet uh and by the way the Iranian account has not been denied by the US. There were ambiguities in
Sentcom's statement. Uh so they don't deny that there was a US tanker that tried to sneak through the straight of Hormuz by turning off uh the uh the
equipment that would have allowed it to be detected. uh that it did that it attempted to pass through the straight of Homus without the permission of the Iranian military. They deny none of
that. Uh and they don't deny that the drones were fired at that vessel as a warning which is what the IRGC says. Uh
so in the context I think it's entirely reasonable for the Iranians to say we will not allow any US affiliated vessels
to pass through the straight of Hormuz without our permission and according to whatever conditions we may impose.
Nonetheless, there was an attempt made and uh it seems to me that what happened here is that the United States was I
can't believe that a US affiliated vessel, a tanker would attempt to transit the straight of Hormamoose, particularly in a stealth manner without first consulting with the US military.
This was probably coordinated, in fact, it was probably done uh at the direction of the US military. some empty tanker
affiliated with the United States attempted this so that uh they would provoke the entirely predictable reaction of the Iranian military which
fired warning shots and then they would use that as a pretext to attack land-based targets in Iran. Uh that's
exactly what they did and this time the Iranians responded uh not simply by firing on US naval vessels but firing
upon a US military base in the Persian Gulf. uh something that I uh as far as I can tell, as far as I know, they have
not done at any point during this ceasefire. So, this is taking it up uh the escalation ladder. Uh again, the
Iranian military is demonstrating that it will respond to escalations with their own escalations. And where this will end, probably in another full-blown
hot war. Uh and all because that's exactly what the United States and Israel want. They want to resume the war while trying to make it look as though
it was the fault of the Iranians. Now, uh the IRGC also published uh footage of the missile launch or missiles launched
at the Kuwait air base or I'm sorry, the US military base in Kuwait. Uh and here is the uh the video in question.
Heat up here.
Now, uh although you saw several launches there, uh that may well have been uh multiple angles of one single
launch, uh it does appear that only one ballistic missile was launched. But as I say, this appears to be a first uh
during uh the ceasefire. And although the claim is being made that it was inter intercepted, uh you know, the corporate media in the United States uh
supported by satellite imagery have established that uh the US military bases throughout the Gulf and particularly in Kuwait took an absolute
beating as a result of missile and drone attacks from the Adani military. So absent any evidence, I wouldn't assume
that this was intercepted. Also uh during the ceasefire or alleged ceasefire uh there has been a massive
buildup of US military uh forces in the Persian Gulf. And there's good reason to believe that a lot of the forces that have been brought into the Gulf during
the ceasefire uh have been uh located or uh stationed temporarily in Kuwait. Uh
so that is probably um a at this stage a somewhat targetrich environment. Uh but for the time being uh there are no
credible reports of uh damage or casualties at the US military base in uh Kuwait. We'll continue to follow that uh as this story unfolds.
Now the Kuwaitis for their part acknowledged that their air defenses became engaged. They said it was not only one missile. They used the phrase
missiles and drones uh fired at the Kuwaiti military base. And uh at this stage when this report was issued uh and
and published by Geopolitics Prime, another telegram channel, the Kuwait Army general staff was uh stating uh that they were in the process of
responding to hostile missile and drone attacks. And the the military warned that explosion sounds heard across Kuwait are the result of air defense systems intercepting hostile targets.
However, at that stage, uh they did not say that they had intercepted all of the incoming uh projectiles. Uh as one would
expect this caused a spike in the price of oil. Uh you can see here uh the uh
day's results uh in trading in oil on oil price o oilpric.com there was a 2.57%
increase in the price of a barrel of bent Brent crude to 9671 uh US dollar 9671 for reasons that uh
11 minutesare mystifying uh the price of Brent crude uh remains below $100 per barrel even though earlier in this ceasefire
when the United States and Iran weren't firing at each other. Uh the uh the price of a barrel of Brent crude was
well above $100. So why it would be below $100 at this stage with uh you know direct now uh conflict uh between
not only the naval forces of Iran and the United States but also uh land-based uh military targets on both sides. Uh
that is truly uh mystifying and one wonders you know just what uh confidence one can place in the uh uh the uh the
judgments of oil traders nowadays uh whom I have described previously as terminally stupid. Uh now uh meanwhile
the United the Iranian military reported that it allowed 26 ships to pass through the straight of Hormuz with the IRGC's
permission. It stated uh that the receiving permission and coordinating for passage through the strait is mandatory. As previously announced, passage through other routes is
considered a disruption and will be dealt with. Last night, several ships attempted to enter the Persian Gulf illegally by tampering with and turning off their navigation system. So, here
we're being told it wasn't just one ship, there were several. And after several rounds of radio warnings, I urg Navy forces stopped two of them in place while the rest were forced to turn back.
I wonder what that means. Stop them in place. Uh does that mean that they were seized? That that means that that they are now uh stuck in a place where they
are completely surrounded by Iranian military forces that they're unable uh to move out of the straight in either direction. Unclear at this stage. In any
case, the uh IRGC Navy went on and said the terrorist US military in the region violated the ceasefire by firing several missiles at empty areas of Bandar Abbas
airport which caused no damage and uh so forth. Now again 26 ships passed through the straight of Hormuz in the past 24
hours according to the IRGC uh with its permission. This is in fact consistent
with uh uh the data that appears on the straight of Hornmuse's live tracker. Now it's a little bit small but if you look
at the center of this image on the right side you'll see that within uh the past 26 ships uh it has stated uh
have passed. And if you look in the lower left hand corner, you'll see the number of four in red. That is the number of ships that are transiting
right now. Now, while this is a significant increase, 26 vessels from the average number of ships that have passed through the straight of Hoduza
during uh this uh uh this war of aggression on Iran. It's only approximately 16%
of the vessels the average daily number of vessels that was passing through the straight of Hammoose before uh the war of aggression was launched. Uh so uh
this is not nearly enough to significantly alleviate uh the uh burgeoning oil crisis in the world today.
Now oilprice.com published yet another alarming article about the state of the uh global oil supplies. Uh this uh was
published yesterday. Uh the author Iran Slav, one of the analysts at oilprice.com, who's been doing some fine
reporting on how dire the situation is becoming uh has authored an article entitled shrinking oil inventories raised fears of prolonged energy crisis.
I'll take a couple of minutes to take you through this. It is uh quite important I think. uh you'll see that uh at the very beginning of the article she
writes global oil inventories are fast approaching a critical point with Asia the first facing minimum operational levels in Europe close behind. This is
the latest in a growing series of warnings from industry experts about the state of oil supply and the prospects of a severe shortage. It seems the world is
running out of time to avert a much bigger crisis than we already have. Asia is already struggling with supply. Jeff Curry, senior adviser at the Carala
Group, told CNBC this week, speaking on the sidelines of an industry event, he said, "The energy market, uh, we've seen explosive prices on products. Jet fuel
has come down, but diesel has now gone up above jet fuel. So, the problem here in Singapore continues. It just moved from jet to diesel." The problem is not
isolated to Singapore. Uh, she writes with total Asian stocks already on the brink of minimum operational level. Uh this is actually coming from uh this analyst uh Curry from the Carile Group.
And uh in that Curry took a more pessimistic or possibly realistic stance on the state of inventories than his former colleagues from Goldman Sachs who
earlier this month said they did not expect global inventories of crude oil to reach minimum operational levels this summer. Although they acknowledged that the situation with supply is
challenging. Curry is saying that they're going to reach those levels in July. Uh global oil inventories were quote unlikely to hit minimum
operational levels this summer. The speed of depletion and supply losses in some regions of products is concerning.
Goldman said Goldman by the way is perennially optimistic. Always juicing the market. Uh I think uh I I I attach
greater weight to what this analyst Curry is saying. Uh and Goldman's analysts uh she writes issued a fresh warning as they reported that April
draws from in inventories had run at double double the rate until the end of March. So, they're drawing down inventories at an accelerating rate. The
article goes on and says, "Summer is shaping up to be much hotter than usual in energy markets with the International Energy AY's head recently warning oil
was about to reach the red zone in July or August." Uh, and then she goes on and says, "According to Carile's Curry,
Europe has less than that uh before it meets the oil shortage head on. It may be painful because all of the info in inventories that are drawing out of the
United States out of the US strategic petroleum reserve are being exported into Europe. So the Europeans think they have no problem because they're getting
all of this oil being imported from the United States. Uh so the US is basically it seems selling probably this oil at a
premium to Europe. Uh and in the process drawing down rapidly its own strategic reserve. Uh and what's worse uh
according to Curry, the crunch will not spare the United States either with shortages being uh beginning to be felt by July. Quote, I would say Asia, you're
there. Europe, give it about another month and look for July being a problem in the US, he said, even as traders continue to focus on straight statements by Trump. Amazing that these terminally
stupid traders attach any weight to anything Trump says about this conflict.
Uh, in any case, uh, she goes on and writes that, uh, Brent crude is back below $100 today after topping the
three-digit threshold on Tuesday after a fresh round of US missile strikes. This prompted the latter to state the US had violated the ceasefire and so forth. And
finally, I just want to share with you u couple of items. Uh, first of all, uh, some really dire numbers coming from the World Bank for the Gulf autotocracies.
The World Bank has downgraded growth in the uh GCC economies from 4.4% in 2025 to 1.3% in 2026.
And uh this uh summary goes on and says uh that Saudi Arabia's growth is projected to slow from 4.3 in 2025 to 3.1 in 2026. The UAE's from 5% to 2.4%.
So 50% reduction and katus is catastrophic. Its outlook has dropped sharply by 11 points with growth now a
5.7 contraction percent contraction instead of a 5.3% expansion. This may
explain why Qatar Qatar is apparently based on reports uh trying to play uh a more assertive role in bringing this
catastrophic war to an end. Kuwait is expected to contract by 6 point 6.4% even more than Qatar reversing a prior
2.6% 6% growth uh forecast. Badain's growth has seen easing from 3.1 to 1.3.
So that's well over a 50% reduction.
Oman by contrast is uh fairing uh much less worse with a 3.6% uh projected projection to uh downgraded to 2.4%.
That is growth for 20 estimated growth for 2026.
And the last thing I want to share with you uh is uh an insane statement by Donald Trump. Mr.
President, Iran wants control of the straight over Moose. Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the strait? And would
they have to open it immediately or would you be open to that happening over a period of time?
No. The strait's going to be open to everybody. It's uh And who would control it?
It's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have.
They would like to control it. Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else. So, we'll have to blow
them up. They understand that. They'll be fine.
Mr. M, just just look at uh Narco Rubio's face and Hex's face when he says we have to
blow them up like everybody else who will have to blow them up. They understand that. They'll be fine. Mr. Mr. M.
Yeah, they did their best to keep their poker face on, but uh uh I I suspect that they weren't consulted about the
Donald's plan to blow up Oman if it cooperates in uh Iran's management of the Strait of Hormuz. So, let's be very
clear here. Oman has not threatened to strike the United States. It's never committed any active aggression or threatened to commit any active aggression to the United States. It's
not suicidal. It would not even contemplate doing such a thing.
uh if in fact it cooperated with Iran uh in the management of the Strait of Hormuz, even if that was a violation of
international law, it would not justify the United States in blowing up Oman.
Notice he didn't say that they would attack Iran's mil Oman's navy or its military or its government. He talked
about the country blowing up the country. This man is truly an insane psychopath, folks. Uh and that's just one of the many reasons why no one
should think that this catastrophic war is going to end well and that he's going to find some diplomatic solution out of the disaster that he has created. Uh he
is uh now threatening uh to uh demolish an entire country based upon you know the possibility that it might cooperate
with Iran in the management of the strait. Uh, and by the way, if this insane threat from Donald Trump deters
the uh the government of Oman from cooperating with Iran uh in the uh
management of the strait and in particular the collection of fees from vessels that are transiting the straight. This isn't going to hurt Iran.
Iran doesn't need the cooperation of Oman to control the straight of Hormuz.
It can do that all by itself and there's nothing that Oman can do militarily or economically to prevent Iran from uh
from controlling the Strait of Hormuz and imposing fees on ships that pass through it. So if the result of this uh
extraordinary threat, this lunatic threat from Trump is to convince Oman's government that it can't take any part
of the fees that Iran is charging to these vessels and will charge to them in the future. All that's going to happen, I would imagine, is that Iran's going to
end up keeping 100 100% of the fees instead of sharing them with Oman. So, in effect, this uh latest act of lunacy
from the Donald uh has the potential to uh make Iran even richer. Uh but such is
the uh utter insanity coming out of the uh the White House nowadays. We will continue to follow the story. Uh, you know, I I I'm sorry to sound like a
broken record, but please do try to filter out all this noise about these negotiations, these offers going back and forth. While I completely understand
why the Iranian government is engaging in these discussions, even if there's only a 5% chance of them succeeding, as I've said before, it's the responsible
thing for the Iranian government to engage. But the overwhelming likelihood is that there will be no peace deal. And
even if one is signed, it's a virtual certainty that both the United States and Israel will violate it six ways from Sunday. And uh this thing is not going
to end by means of any uh you know collegial negotiation. Uh I think we are
headed into uh extraordinarily turbulent waters economically. This is Demetri Lcera signing off from Kalamata, Greece on May 28th, 2026.

Part 1 of 2

SCOTT RITTER: TRUMP LIFTS BLOCKADE, GIVES IRAN $300BN, RUSSIA ATTACK EUROPE?, DID THEY HIT ROMANIA?
Moral Resistance and Sulaiman Ahmed
Streamed live 8 hours ago Moral Resistance with Sulaiman Ahmed

Scott Ritter explains that that Trump is unable to make a deal with Iran and therefore the will escalate. Russia will attack Europe and we explore whether Russia attacked Ukraine.

William Scott Ritter Jr. is an American former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector, author, and commentator.



Transcript

escalate. We had a number of engagements between Iran and the United States of America over the last few days. The
Americans bombed Bundabas and also close to Bundabas airport. Iran responded by
hitting Kuwait with a number of missiles and drones. We are hearing that the deal was very close and then we've had
reports that the drill may have broken down. But now we're hearing something along the lines of the deal may be close, but they're still having
discussions. And so, is it close? Is it not? Who's made Trump pull out? These are all the conversations we're going to have with our guest Scott R. In addition
to that, we also have a situation where there is major escalation when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. And the latest
was that a drone, a Russian drone did hit a Romanian building last night. We still haven't been able to ascertain
exactly what happened. Uh the Ukrainians and the Romanians said that this was a drone that came from Russia. We're going
to speak about all those things, the major escalations that happening in both fronts with Scott Ritter. Scott Ritter
is a US a former US marine who served the country for a very long period of time. In addition to that, he is a UN in
uh U. United Nations uh in weapons inspector and he is also an esteemed author.
Let me bring Scott up. Scott, thank you so much for taking your time out to join us. How are you? I'm doing well, thanks. Yourself?
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for asking. Um Scott, I just want to get immediately into the Iran war. It's
we're all in this kind of purgatory type situation where we don't really know what's happening. What's your thoughts about this entire peace deal, the
discussions? At one point, we think the deal is very close. Then we think that no, the deal is broken down. What is happening?
Well, I mean, you're using the right word, deal, it's not an agreement. It's not a treaty. It's a deal. And deals are
the the worst of the worst of of arrangements between nations because deals can be broken. Deals can be
derided as bad deals. We need a better deal. um you know, I want a new deal. Uh and this is the mentality of Donald
Trump. I don't believe the Iranians speak in terms of deals. They speak in terms of agreements. Uh they're looking for an agreement that could be transformed into a binding security
council resolution at the United Nations. Um Donald Trump's looking for a deal because he's he's a dealmaker and uh and he's a deal breakaker and he's
somebody who's trying to um con the American people into believing that he has a good deal. Um he's like a used car
salesman. He's trying to sell you a lemon, pretending that it's uh you know it goes from 0 to 60 in in high speed.
Uh you know this is what's going this is a con game. This is Donald Trump knowing that he lost the war but also knowing
that if he accepts a deal um you know it that if he accepts an agreement it
becomes clear that he lost the war. So he's looking for a deal and he's going to break the deal. Um, you know, the the
the Russians have rightly said that u the United States is agreement incapable.
We can't make an agreement and we won't make an agreement and there won't be an agreement. They may sign a piece of paper, but understand even the piece of
paper they sign put off things like the nuclear issue for a period of time. I can guarantee you that when that time is
met, Trump is going to be unhappy and say the deal is no longer valid. guarantee you we have to renegotiate.
This is a bad deal. The Iranians aren't living up to their, you know, what they said they were going to do. This isn't what we talked about. That's just where
we're at right now. So, there's a lot of stupid skirmishing taking place as the United States attempts to assert itself because it's important for Donald Trump
uh to when he enters into, you know, whatever this is going to be called, um that he be seen by the American people as being the alpha dog. He's the one
that has to be peeing on the other person, not the other way around. And um right now he's getting peed on by the Iranians because Iranians won the war.
They get to dictate the terms of the outcome. You know, Trump says there will be no uh money uh exchange for passage
of straight horses. Sorry, Donald, baby, that ship has sailed. Whoever goes through the straight of hormones is paying money straight up. And there's
nothing you can do about it. You can flex your you non-existent muscle all you want by bombing targets of no significance at Ber Abbas but if you
flex too hard the Iranians will flex back and end up you know destroying nations. See the United States using conventional power can't destroy Iran.
Iran overnight can destroy the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, uh Bahrain. Uh they can make eastern Saudi Arabia
uninhabitable. Um there's a a number of Qatar can stop being a major producer of gas. Uh all of this can happen overnight
5 minutesand there's nothing the United States can do to stop that which is why this skirmishing I don't believe is going to turn into anything bigger because the US
can't afford to have it turn into something bigger. This is simply posturing by the United States. Tragic posturing because people are dying. Uh
and it may cost American service members their lives. Um you know Donald Trump's, you know, playing with fire here. Um fire is the ultimate two-way street. it
burns everybody. And um so that's where we're at. But I I just think people need to understand that Donald Trump is
incapable of um you know agreeing to what the Iranians have put on the table.
Uh he will find a way to caveat it to cover it to shade it so that at the
first available window of review I think in 30 days um he'll say they're not in compliance. We need to renegotiate uh
something of that nature. But it's also essential that oil get flowing. There was a very pointed um um statement made
6 minutesby the CEO of I think Chevron about um you know the oil supply in the world uh
coming up and he said that the we're you know we've been cheating. We've been flooding the market with um you know
strategic reserves to compensate for the lack of oil flowing out of the Middle East. But those strategic reserves aren't bottomless. And um you know
eventually in whether it's 3 weeks or 6 weeks uh we are going to run into a major global oil shortage
and you know this is going to be devastating for the global economy and devastating for Donald Trump politically. He needs to get oil flowing
through the straight of Hormuz one way or the other and he can't do it militarily. So he's going to have to accept the Iranian terms. um you know he
can threaten to bomb Oman all he wants but that's not going to change any outcome.
What does it say about his nature though the fact that on that day he threatened to bomb three countries one of them was Oman the other one was Iran. Um this
7 minuteskind of I understand that for in his mind he thinks I'm acting tough to the media. I'm acting tough to my base. But
it just comes across as being extremely irrational and this kind of impression that people get of America which was
always quite positive like there was this kind of elegance, this eloquence is not really coming across. What's your thoughts about that in terms of the way
he's presenting the US in the world stage?
Look, Donald Trump is an embarrassment to the United States of America. He's an embarrassment to the office of presidency. He doesn't govern as a president. He governs as a dictator. Um,
we're not functioning as a constitutional republic. We're functioning as a cult of personality.
Donald Trump is afflicted by narcissistic personality disorder. This is a mental illness. Um, it's diagnosible long distance. According to
DSM, he exhibits all five traits. And even though some people say that it doesn't necessarily manifest itself in a
psychotic manner like other mental illnesses, um it malignant narcissistic personality disorder does manifest
itself in an antisocial behavior. And that's what we're seeing here. Uh this is a mentally ill man. So you see what's going through the mind of Donald Trump.
Not even Donald Trump knows what's going through the mind of Donald Trump because Donald Trump is not well. He is insane.
He is legally insane. Uh if he were to be arrested for a crime, he could probably get off on a defense of
insanity. Um temporary or otherwise. But this is the reality. No rational human being makes the statements that Donald
Trump makes. I mean, even the dumbest of dumb MAGA supporters understands you don't get to talk like this. This is not
how polite society speaks. This is not how a president of the United States is supposed to speak. This is the the kind
of language you get from the drunk in the into the bar on a Friday night after the last girl has been picked up by the cowboys and he's left all alone looking
at a pool table that he can't compete in because he's peed his pants because he's incontinent because he's just old and stupid and all. This is the this is
Donald Trump. He's a pathetic human being. Really the pa I mean I'm not I'm just being straight up. You know this
and your audience knows this. You see this with your own eyes. You just don't like to articulate it because the consequences of acknowledging what is happening here is mindbending.
I mean it what the hell has happened to the United States of America that we not only produced a leader of this nature
elected reelected but we keep him in power. This is why the founding fathers well actually it was an amendment. It
wasn't the founding fathers. This is why we came up with a 25th amendment. So we could remove insane individuals who are
no longer capable of governing. He may be able to physically stand up and move around, but his brain isn't there. This
is not a well man. And yet now we put him in in a very stressful situation.
10 minutesAnd people who aren't well don't respond well to stress. And you see it back and forth pingponging irrational statement after irrational statement. There's no
other way to do this. I can't sugarcoat this. You know, I'd like to be able to sit here and go, "Well, Donald Trump's just playing uh 4D chess." You know, he's a he's a genius, really. I mean,
the guy is smarter than smart. He's just playing this game. This is an emotional game that he's playing, trying to play up the emotions, but deep inside, Donald Trump knows exactly what he's doing. No,
he doesn't. Because if he knew what he's doing, we wouldn't be in this war. We're in this war because this shallow, intellectual, incapable man, well, was
fed, spoonfed horse manure by Benjamin Netanyahu. And he disregarded the advice of his cabinet, all of them said, "Don't trust the Israelis on this one. This
isn't going to go down the way they think it's going to go down." And he got our nation, his nation, the nation he's the chief executive of, involved in a
war. We cannot win. We knew we couldn't win this. Donald Trump knew he couldn't win this. You know, people reflect on the fact when was it? 2019 um when a
global hawk was shot down uh over the straight of Hormuz maybe 2020 um and Donald Trump said I'm going to bomb the Iranians in retaliation for them
shooting down our drone and the military went I'm out buddy you bombed them they're going to send missiles then we have to escalate now we're going to be
into a cycle of escalation that we lose because we don't have the force structure able to defeat the Iranians so they're going to shut the street of
Hormuz hammer oil production and um we don't have anything to respond to. It's going to take us a year and a half to
build up the military force necessary to surge in. The global economy is going to collapse by then. Mr. President, do not bomb Iran. He knew then that we can't control the straight of horror movies.
He was told by the Pentagon, we can't do it. And there was no radical transformation in our force posture in
the region that changed that that outcome. We never could do it. Not in recent history. Not since the Iranians
developed missiles that can reach out and touch us, you know, tens, hundreds of kilometers offshore. It's this is just a statement of fact. He knew it
then. He should have known it down. But he's insane. Insane. I mean, this, you know, I I don't think he was this insane. He, you know, he suffered from
narcissistic personality disorder for his entire life. You just take a look at Donald Trump. That's who he is. But the the malignancy of it even during his
first administration didn't necessarily manifest itself. But when the election
was stolen from him in 2020 and the I mean the bitterness that came in, it literally melted his brain and the
resentment he has that that to not just Joe Biden and the Democrats but to the American people. He resents the fact
that the American people allowed this to happen. He hates the American people.
Donald Trump only cares about Donald Trump. And so this presidency is marked by his extreme narcissism. This man is a
walking talking egoomaniac of the worst kind. He built a golden idol to himself
in Mara Lago and had religious figures come and pray to God through the idol.
Read the damn Bible. It doesn't work out for people who believe in God to put up a false idol and pray to that false
idol. Biblical remedies tend to be u spoken of in terms of smoke
smitten. You know, God rages down and smotees you. Um Melania, don't look over your shoulders because you will turn into a pillar of salt. I mean, this is
the kind of stuff that Donald Trump's engaged in. Healthy, mentally healthy people don't do this. Sorry to go on the ramble, but I mean, I need to emphasize
this point. Quit thinking that the United States operates on the basis of rational leadership. We have a mentally
ill man in the White House surrounded by sycopants who refuse to do what's necessary to remove this ill man from office.
Yeah, by the way, I agree with you and and also the pressure of the all the court cases thinking he may spend the
rest of his life in prison. All of these things probably played all the major factors in what you're referring to in terms of the pressure that he's getting.
Guys, on the Xbox, we're going to be moving to the YouTube. So, click on the link in the nest. And if you're on the YouTube, make sure you like the video. Now, we have got some breaking news.
Scott, obviously, we've been getting details about what's in the uhou. New York Times is reporting that another
part of what's in theou is reparations for Iran, but they actually detail what the reparations are. It's $300 billion
dollars of reparations to Iran. This is in addition to Iran, as you mentioned, having complete control of the Strait of
Hermoose. This is in addition to Iran basically having the ability to enrich uranium within the parameters about 3.6 3.9% 3.69%.
uh and it's in addition to the unfreezing of at least 50% of the assets and the removal of sanctions on oil and
energy initially with a conversation about uh in torto removal. What's your thoughts about how the deal seems like
it's as you mentioned Iran won but the deal seems like it is something that um if it's agreed upon is Iran getting exactly what they want.
Well, it's it's Iran getting exactly what they want, and Iran's not going to yield on this. There's no yielding on Iran. The United States holds no
leverage over Iran. What are we going to do? Threaten to keep sanctions in place?
We've done that for 47 years. We're going to increase the sanctions. I don't think there's anything more we can sanction in Iran. We're going to threaten to bomb them. We did that for 37 days. That didn't turn out too well.
There is literally no leverage left.
None whatsoever. Iran holds all the cards. It's the United States economy that's going to collapse this summer and it's Donald Trump's political, you know,
legacy that's going to be erased um when he loses the midterms and he will lose the house. There's just virtual Gary
unless he does something radical in terms you know that that is a direct affront on American democracy. um you know, he's positioned to lose the house,
which means the next two years will be spent um you know, going on trial for impeachment. And trust me, the Democrats
will impeach. If he gets if he doesn't get convicted, they'll impeach again.
Impeach again. They have two years to impeach this man. And we know they'll do it multiple times because they did it twice at the end of his last term. This
man is so impeachable because he doesn't function as a constitutionally directed executive of the of a constitutional
republic. he functions as a dictator, total disregard for the rule of law. And so he will be impeached. Whether he's
convicted is up to the Senate and there's still a possibility that a he could hold the Republicans could hold on
to the Senate or B um you know they can lose it by a margin that means that you'll never get the 60% necessary to
convict. Um and that'll keep him out of jail. But if we have a total economic collapse this summer as which is the direction we're heading um you know
James Carville's magic words on the door of the war room in Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign it's the economy
stupid will come back to haunt Donald Trump. Just ask George Herbert Walker Bush the winner of the of Desert Storm.
The greatest military victory of American history. I mean my god we went out there and we smoked the fourth largest army in the world. kick their ass and we had victory parades and the
American people were in love with America again. We got rid of the shame of Vietnam. It was he was so electable.
It was a guarantee he was going to win the election in 1992. Except, read my lips. No new taxes. And then he taxed
the American people. It's the economy, stupid. It's the only thing that matters here in America. We don't care about anything else. We are a capitalist
society, a consumer-driven society, which means we need to have money. And when Americans open up their wallet
and uh they they go through their wallet and instead of a $100 bill, all they have is a $1 bill. Um they're not happy
because their bills require they got to pay their bills. The tax man cometh. So does the mortgage collector. So does the
electric company. So does the oil company. You don't get to drive your car without paying for the gas and it's gone through the roof right now. What used to
cost me $36 to fill up a tank cost me $58 yesterday. All right. I don't make that much money and the money I make, you know, I'm just watching it go away.
One tank of gas at a time as all other Americans are. And there's also costs because when you start paying more cost for fuel, it's greater cost for
transport. And that money, you know, the producers aren't going to eat that cost.
They put it on to the consumer. So, when I finally get a tank of gas and go to the store and start buying things, my grocery bills are going through the roof. Anything I buy is going through
19 minutesthe roof. If I take my wife out to dinner, um, which I like to do, but taking her out to dinner, we were talking about it. A restaurant that we
used to go and be able to pay 40 bucks cost me $86 to take her out to dinner. Now, I love my wife, but there can't be too many $86 meals left because I can't afford it.
It's not that I don't love her. I just can't afford to take her out because I don't have the money. And if I'm doing that, every American's dead. We live paycheck by paycheck. And when we get
the collapse of our income or our the collapse of the the purchasing power of our income so that we don't make enough
to even survive, people will start losing their homes. This summer is going to be a very very difficult for summer
for the American people and it's going to be politically devastating for the Republicans and it's going to be politically devastating for Donald Trump
unless he does something to turn it around. And the only way he can turn around right now is to have a a deal with Iran. So, he's gonna have to
swallow a poison pill. But he's not going to be happy about this at all. And when I say he's agreement and capable, Donald Trump will do whatever it takes
to ensure that the American people perceive that he's the top dog because what you just described is definitely Donald Trump lying on the ground getting
peed on by the alpha dog Iranian. That's just the way it is. losers get peed on by the big dog and he's going to try and
convince the American public that he's the one peeing on the Iranians. That ain't going to happen. I don't know how you you know, first of all, thank goodness for the Iranians for sticking
to their guns. We attacked them. Just so the audience understands, we attacked them. We attacked them in the most cowardly manner, an act of perforing to
have a negotiation to resolve the issue we said was worthy of war, the nuclear issue. And there was an agreement. The Omani foreign minister was flying to the United States to finalize this
agreement. And we in Israel bombed Iran, a cowardly act in the middle of the night, murdering Ali Kam, which was supposed to be the golden ticket,
killing this man, collapsing the Iranian regime, no missiles worried about, no nuclear program, nothing because we now own Iran. It didn't work out that way because we're too dumb to even
understand that Iran is a constitutional republic with institutions of government that are linked to, you know, not just religion, but also national pride. And
if you go around knocking off the Supreme Leader, the Iranian people rally to the government as they did. the Iranian government stronger today than it was when the war started uh in terms
of the support of the people. I mean, so that's where we're at. Uh this is the this is the reality. Um and the Iranians
are right to say you have to pay for every brick you took down. You have to pay for every body you killed. You have
to pay for the 165 children you slaughtered in Manab.
and we do have to pay. We were in the wrong. There was no justification under international law. There was no moral argument to be made. This was purely a
naked act of aggression, a war of aggression which according to the Nerburgg trials, Judge Jackson is the highest crime, the highest war crime.
Because from this act, all other crimes are emanated. Every crime we committed against Iran and we committed so many crimes over the course of this 37-day
war and ongoing to this point. those people we murdered in Mander Abbas. It's not an act of, you know, self-defense by the United States. We have no legitimate
claim to bomb Bond Abas. None whatsoever. So when we drop bombs on Bond Abbas today, we're murdering people. Murdering people. And we should
be held accountable. Now, they'll never be able to get the perpetrators of these crimes to a court. They can't make the United States pay for their crime. And
$300 billion seems to be a a fair a fair price to pay. And I'm glad that they've insisted on that. And I'm glad they I I
don't know what mechanism how they're going to get that $300 billion. What are we going to do? Increase the defense bill uh the defense budget by another 300 billion to get the American taxpayer
to pay. I mean, yay, America. Guess what? Donald Trump went to war and now we owe $300 billion, you know, to the Iranians. It's just and it that's on top
of the money we spent going to war. We haven't even calculated that expense honestly because I think by the time we end up counting all the dollars
associated with this, we're looking at over hundred billion dollars spent on this 37 day campaign. Trust me, the
numbers will add up eventually when they all comes in because we don't do anything cheap in America. We have grifters, we have scam artists, we have defense industry, the gouges, the
replacement costs alone for the munitions that we expended are going to be unreal.
That all has to be factored in. Um, so there it is. So if you go 300 plus 100, that's a $400 billion catastrophe.
I mean, our savings and loans crisis didn't even come up to that. Um, this was totally self-inflicted. So, I'm glad
Iran is holding the line. I'll be surprised if they get that 300 billion.
I I I still need to know where that's coming from and how politically that's going to manifest itself because you know, sorry Donnie baby, you may be a
dictator in your own mind, but the Constitution gives the power of the purse United States Congress and you don't have the ability to unilaterally generate $300 billion to give away.
Congress is going to have to step in here right now. And I don't see Congress going, "That's a good idea. Let's give Iran $300 billion." Now, maybe we do it
by uh But again, I mean, there's frozen assets, but they don't add up to $300 billion.
Scott, my my understanding is it's going to come from the Gulf States cuz the way he wrote it is he's going to manage it.
So, it's almost like the Gaza Fund, but if you look at the Gaza Fund, there's no money in it. No one's even put any money in it. But the CL Yeah.
Yeah. So, what I mean, so, so wait a minute now. I I'm Saudi Arabia and I've got uh I mean, they always do, you know, vision 2023. Well, we're a couple years.
So, I think it's vision 2030. Yeah, vision 2030. It's a great thing to have a vision, but where's the money come
from? I mean, they're already pressed to come up the money for vision 2030 because half of vision 2030 was about diversifying the economy. So, you weren't totally dependent upon energy.
25 minutesSo, here they are told to diversify their economy, but the only money maker they have is oil. And now they're told that you got to generate funds uh and you can't do the diversification because
if you're busy generating money and you can't diverse.
Wow. What? UAE? They just broke free of OPEC. OPEC, you go, "That's okay. UAE, sell all your oil, but it all goes to Iran." That's not what the UAE broke
free of OPEC for. They sold they're going to sell all the oil so they could generate a lifeline to Israel. And uh and now they're told, "No, that money's
got to divert to Iran." I mean, look, here's the this this is the harsh truth.
The Gulf Arab states exist only because Iran allows them to exist today.
uh these pathetic remnants of British colonial period, these new neoc colonial acolytes of an empire that no longer
exists um picked the wrong horse to bet on. They lost the race. They put everything on the horse and the horse lost and now it comes time to pay the
piper. Um they they have no choice. But this is going to be a hard pill for them to swallow, too. I mean, imagine if you're
an American be the Europeans now. Wait a minute. We all want to go to war with Russia. That's what we're saying. We're
going to go to war with Russ 2030. We're going to war with Russia. And you're telling me that the United States is going to let us go to war with Russia.
We're going to get our asses handed to it. And then we're going to have to pay the Russians reparations for H because this is the this is the model. This is
the president's being set. Um America starts a war, loses the war, walks away, and the other people who are on the side end up paying the price. Imagine being
Taiwan. Yes, Taiwan, you will pay the price. Japan and South Korea, you will pay the price. You know who's not going to pay the price? America. And we just
walk away. We We have big oceans and we just walk across the ocean, come back to our little fortress, America, and we
hide out. I mean, so yeah, this is fascinating. I mean, it's uh it's it as
an American, I have to be honest, it's it's shameful.
We lost. I mean, my god, how did that happen? We don't lose. We can beat ourselves. We've done that historically.
Vietnam. But you know, I I all of my peers in the Marine Corps were Vietnam veterans. And um the last time I checked
with them, they won every battle. And that's all the job of a Marine is to do is to close with and destroy the enemy through firepower maneuver. The the North Vietnamese did not win a
meaningful tactical engagement. They did not win an operational engagement. Every time they went up against the Marine Corps, they lost and they lost badly.
Same thing with the Army most of the time. Now, we committed atrocities. I'm not defending what we're doing. I'm just saying that we don't lose.
That's the Taliban.
Taliban will tell you when they're fighting the Marines. They said, "When we found out we're fighting the Marines, we had to change our tactics because we learned the hard way that if we shoot at
the Marines, they don't shoot back. They run towards us." And that's what happens. You want to play with the Marine Corps, we will drive a bayonet through your freaking chest. That's what
we do. And we lost against Iran. Not by beating ourselves. The Iranians beat us.
28 minutesThis is humiliation beyond belief.
I mean, congratulations, Iran. Hats off to you. You got to call it as you see it. Good job. But as an American, this is humiliating. We've not been in this
position ever, ever in our history where we lost a war and we have to pay
reparations. Think about it. We lost a war and we have to pay reparations.
We're having the terms of conflict termination dictated to us by the victorious power.
This is a shameful moment in American history. A shameful moment. And all Americans should reflect on this. You
know that we got beat. And um and yet we have this idiot president, this insane man who keeps talking about fletching
his muscles. You do understand we've got nothing left in the arsenal. They were going to they're going to they're going to prosecute members of Congress who have the courage to say we don't have
any ammo left. Shot it all. Gone. You know, it's the truth. But they don't want us to tell the truth because the American people are supposed to believe
that somehow we're still strong enough to win a war. We just got beat by the Iranians. Then you have idiots like the Lithuanian foreign minister saying,
"Hey, you know, NATO can take out Keningrad with what? Long range strike weapons that can overcome area air defense and
area denial weapons." Didn't we just try that with Iran and lose? Now you want to And Iran was they're good, but they're, you know, they're like college team,
good college team. You want to go up against the NFL champions, Russia, and and you want to take on Russia with your standoff weapons? Are you stupid? The answer is yes. Taiwan.
You don't think the Chinese can literally overwhelm anything Taiwan has in terms of air defense? Now, the United States just proved it doesn't work. the
the Taiwanese technology isn't better than our technology by damn sir and our technology doesn't work we don't have it
anymore even it did work so it would be this is one of those major events in history that will go
down in history it's like when the Roman Empire you know started to tilt when they started losing legions in the uh in the in the Herkin forest and they
started losing against you know the the Persians and you know it's it's we've We lost. We got beat. That's never happened
before. Nobody has ever beat the United States of America in a stand-up fight before. The Iranians just did.
Yeah. Yeah. Now, another element of this is uh Scott um I was speaking to Larry and he his source told him that the deal
was actually overlargingly agreed, but then Netanyahu got on the phone and they basically he's been pressurized to pull
away from the deal. And since then, obviously, the Israelis have conducted atrocities in Lebanon, carpet bombing
the country, expanding into the country, um through a wide range of means. And he's saying he's going to expand the ground invasion when there's when
they're so close to a deal. What? And then you saw the Zionist lobby and many politicians such as Lindsey Graham, Ted
Cruz, Randy Fine, various others get on the phone call with Trump and pressure him not to agree to the deal. What do
you think's happening there? Do you think that they're going to make it impossible for a deal to be agreed?
What's your thoughts from that perspective?
Well, yeah, I have not seen on a war room yet. Um, it's designed this lobby, stupid.
Um, I mean, we we have American politics is about money straight up. And the only reason why the Israeli lobby has the
influence they do is because they have money. Now, I know people call that anti-semitic. It's the truth. Okay. Um they they sit there and brag about
putting a hundred million dollars into the 20 uh 24 campaign to buy Congress, which they did. They just spent over $30
million to kick Thomas Massie out of Kentucky. So money talks, you know, that's just the reality of it. And so
32 minutesand and money $200 million to Donald Trump from Miam Adlesen bought a hell of a lot of Zionists surrounding him in his cabinet and you know, so you know, yes,
there's a lot of power. So they can pick up the phone and they can they can make these calls and pressure can happen. I agree that all that's happening. But
let's just get back to basics. It's the economy, stupid. And I can guarantee you when an American politician is staring
death in the face, political death in the face. He's going to choose
the economy over Israel every single time. Especially if he's the president of the United States. So, this is an act
of desperation. First of all, you know, Netanyahu has been threatening to kick the the hell out of everybody from day one. Last time I checked, even though he
committed genocide against Gaza, does he control Gaza yet? Has Amas been defeated? No. Um, Hezbollah, I thought they were gone. Nasar was murdered and
uh the pagers went off and everybody lost their hands and their fingers and that was it. You know, how can you how can you fight when your fingers look like this? Um, sorry. That's probably
going to get picked up by somebody and show that Sky Rider is insensitive to the plight of the people who were butchered by Israel. I'm not. What I'm trying to be is is to point out that the
last time I checked, the IDF was getting a snot kicked out of by Hezbollah on the front lines and Hezbollah has brought in drone warfare in a major way similar to
the scope and scale of what's been seen in the in the Ukrainian Russian fight.
And they are denying the Israelis freedom of movement 20 km in the other direction. It's not Israel projecting its power forward. It's Hezbollah
dominating the battlefield at the point of contact and 20 kilometers deep to include inside Israel where these FPV drones are striking logistics and
command and control and air defense targets. So Netanyahu can do what Netanyahu does, murder people. Put airplanes over target, drop bombs and
murder people. But at some point in time, Donald Trump will pick up the phone and say, "Stand down." And Israel
has no choice. Netanyahu knows this. Why do you think he got up and gave this statement he did the other day that Israel has to decouple itself from the United States financially in 10 years?
Well, it's going to have to be sooner than that, baby. Because you're blowing it, pal. Uh 60% of the Americans don't don't agree with Israel anymore. That
number is going to even worse this summer when it's going to get close to 100%. Because it's the economy, stupid.
And when people realize we went to war on based on Israeli lies and a peace deal that could have brought the oil uh flowing back was stopped because of
Israeli lies and Israeli murder, America's going to cut the umbilical cord. Cut the umbilical cord and all
those pro-Israeli people are either going to go down screaming, picking up the phone, but no no answer. Look, this isn't the first time. In the leadup to
Desert Storm, you know, the the the Yeetsak Shamir and others were picking up the phone complaining and Paul Wolfitz, who's a known neocon
pro-Israeli Zionist, uh basically said, "We're not answering the phone anymore because we're insisting you adhere to
what we say. We don't adhere to what you say." And um he gave the White House uh you know, switchboard and said, "Call that when you're ready to talk, but
until then, don't call me cuz I'm not talking to you." That's how we should be talking to Israel, putting them on notice is who's large and who's in
charge. And it's us. Um, even though we just got beat, but you know what? Israel got beat, too. It was a joint effort.
And the Israelis didn't win. And the other thing we know is Israel can't do it by themselves. This is a big gambit on the part of Danyah who's desperate now. Uh, he's dug himself a huge
political hole. He's still being prosecuted or he's on trial right now for uh for corruption. And when the truth is known, when all these
commissions are held about October 7th, about the conduct of the conflict in Gaza, what he's done in Lebanon, Syria,
and Iran, he's going to turn out not to be the security guru of Israel, but the man who single-handedly destroyed Israel. Um, that's that's his legacy.
So, that what you're seeing is desperation right now. But I will, you know, I don't do I don't know what that was. It I know there's Koshi and there's
something else where you bet on outcomes. Um, I won't do that, but I'm just saying if I did do that, I' I'd bet on the fact that Donald Trump picks oil
over Israel because that's how we survive in America. The pro-Israeli lobby is a parasite that attachs itself
to the American host. We're not going to feed the parasite when the host is dying.
See, ordinarily, um, Scott, I'd agree in the sense of if he'd put America first, and I agree with you, the economy is going to collapse. This is why SpaceX
Anthropic are have brought the IPOs earlier because they want to get the boom now because they know a bust is coming. So I totally agree with you in
terms of the economy. But that being said, if you look at Trump's actions, he's not taking the economy into consideration. He's not taking the
American people into consideration right now. Yes, America is losing. Yes, America and the world and Europe, it's a
much worse, are being harmed. But Trump is becoming richer and richer and richer. and he's become and he's as you mentioned you described it you said he's
37 minutesa sociopath he's a narcissist and they only care about themselves and so when he's looking at himself he's thinking I'm making billions I'm enrich my family
for generations so do I need to worry about the economy we can manipulate the economy as much as possible and if it crashes he'll probably manipulate his
own base and to blame someone else I mean this could be what he's thinking as well or do you think that's not possible in terms of again you're using some difficult
language here uh Simana um Donald Trump thinking right off the bat we have a problem because he's an insane man. So
you know how you know there may be thought processes going through his head but there thought processes of a mentally ill individual. Um I agree that
the man is inherently greedy. I mean he is the epitome of capitalist scum. I mean he's the exact thing that we should never want to become.
um you know a man with no moral values, no moral principles who literally it touches everything in gold. No, he believes he's king Midas. Everything I
touch turns to gold. He doesn't realize that that was a curse that when you touch something turns to gold, it dies, you know, and soon everything is dead
and your wealth is meaningless. Um but the other thing that's going to come up to him because you know there might be moments of uh lucidity uh in this insane
man's mind, the greed that he's doing right now and there the manipulation of the markets um will
be subjected to investigation at some point in time um when the Democrats come into power um and the crimes will be
identified and criminals will be identified and eventually they'll be held to account. Donald Trump can only be president for you know two more years
after this election and as I said this presidency is going to be defined by paralysis going forward. He's not going to be able to have the freedom of action that he's had here. Congress will
restrain him. the house will restrain him. Um, and then he will go away. Now, if he even if he doesn't get convicted
and go away in handcuffs, um, you know, he will return to a nation that will probably, uh, be thrust into the control of Democrats seeking to get retribution.
So, Donald Trump's wealth will disappear in a heartbeat. You know, it it it's just a it's a it's a statement of fact.
And so he at some point in time somebody has to whisper in his ear and say you need to do damage control here buddy because you're literally committing suicide not only for you but your family
and your legacy that uh when this is done you know the uh it's the Democrats are going to do what to Donald Trump
what the what the Romans did to Carthage. They're going to sew salt in the fields. They're going to level the city so saw in the fields and kill everybody and Carthage will no longer
exist. Um and Donald Trump will no longer exist when this is done. Every edifice he's put up will be blown up.
Every property he has will be taken away from him. All money will be taken away from him. His family will be prosecuted.
His daughters will end up in jail. His sons will end up in jail. Um his all the all the supporters will because they are
criminals of the highest order. Um so yeah, I understand what you're saying, but uh at some point in time, you know,
he's got to look in the mirror and understand that there will be that justice is coming. And it's not the justice I want. I don't believe in pol, you know, revenge motive pol pol pol pol
pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol pol politics. It destroys America. It's bad for America.

Part 2 of 2

But it doesn't matter whether I believe in it or support it. It's going to happen because he did it. What goes around comes around, you know. So the wind weep the whirlwind. He has turned
the department of justice into a political revenge machine. I mean he has indicted Barack Obama.
So maybe Barack deserves to be indicted.
But there's a reason why Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Because we don't play the convict president stupidity game. That's the game that's being
played right now. And the most easily convicted president of all American presidents is Donald Trump.
Yeah. Now Scott, I want to talk about uh Russia and Ukraine. Last night there was a drone that hit a apartment building in
Romania. Um, the Ukrainians and the Romanians are claiming this was a Russian drone that came from Russia.
We've not heard anything from Russia in terms of the specifics whether it came or not. The Romanians seem to suggest that this was one of about 30 drones
that were targeting Ukraine and maybe it went off direction and so it may have been an accident. The Brits are coming out and attacking obviously as are many of the other European countries.
Medivvadev came out and said, "Look, we don't know whether this drone came from Russia or not, but what's the drama about? The Europeans have been helping
with this war, helping with these attacks on Russia, and there's been a lot of conversations about how Europe's complicity and many of the commentators
and experts I've spoken to. who spoke to Andre Mataninov and Dmitri Polyansski and various others and they many others have said as well that they feel like
Iran maybe opened up the landscape in the sense of when Iran hit the Gulf state to set a precedent that those who help facilitate and support and allow
their areas to be used as operating bases they are also open targets. What's your thoughts about everything that's happened over the last and even
the last week? or first of all, let's not make a mountain out of the molehill.
No one really cares about this drone striking an apartment building. This political hay is being being cut right now. Uh but it's not a big deal. I mean,
if we want to get into the legalities of it, uh the Ukrainians used electronic warfare to jam a drone, redirect it, and
uh and it flew in into a into a Romanian apartment building. Um Russia is blameless on this. Totally blameless.
Ukraine, you know, operated a weapon and operated the weapon in a way that uh, you know, weaponized the Russian weapon
against Romania. So, legally speaking, it's Ukraine. All Ukraine's fault. Um, but nobody wants to talk. They're just playing stupid games. What's Romania going to do? Mobilize the volunteered Romanian army.
Or or is the Brits going to mobilize their one brigade? They may be able to get together and bring it across the the the the c the the the English Channel.
43 minutesI'm sure the Russians will just pee their pants and run when they hear the British are coming. Um, what's Poland going to do? Mobilize a non-existent military? What are the Baltic states
going to do? Bark louder? Um, you know, what is Germany going to do? Threaten to mobilize a 400,000man army that doesn't exist and can't exist because the German
people don't want to fight. What's France going to do? Nothing. The point is, they're all just yapping their stupid mouths.
Russia didn't do anything wrong here.
This isn't a crime. And Russia doesn't care about what Europe says anymore.
Russia is not looking for a negotiated settlement to Ukraine where the European voice matters. Russia's not hoping the United States can moderate the European
voice so that they can get Europe to agree to some sort of negotiated. Russia's in for the kill on Ukraine now.
Unconditional surrender. Ukraine will accept terms dictated by Russia and that's the only way this war ends.
Ukraine shouldn't have murdered thrown 21 sleeping students in Starbell's teachers college. That was a straw that broke the camel's back. It's over for
Ukraine. Game set match Russia. And Europe doesn't know how to deal with that. So Europe's yapping, yapping, yapping, yapping. But they're scared to
death because they understand a couple things. That's why they had a they had a Baltic drone conference the other day.
Um you know the Baltics are under attack by Ukrainian drones. Imagine that. Um, you know, but
you know, Russia did the same thing. Uh, Ukraine flew drones through the Baltic states. Russia used electronic warfare to take control of the drones and then
flew the drones into targets in the in in in Latafia in Estonia. Um, caused the defense minister to resign because of the embarrassment of this. Um, but
Russia's also put I think it's Latafia on notice that uh, you know, Latafia is getting ready to use their territory to facilitate a major drone campaign
against Russia in June, probably targeting the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which convenes next week. Um, and Russia said, "Well, we know where these targets are,
and if this happens, we're going to take them out." You heard what I said. Russia has said, "We will take out targets in Latvia, a NATO country." Russia doesn't care anymore about NATO.
I mean, Sergey Keragana's doctrine has become Russian policy. You know, that basically Europe screwed up. Europe has
been flapping its lips. Uh, you know, go back to Top Gun. You know, Kag, commander of Air Groupoup, you know, talking to Maverick in Top Gun One. Son,
your mouth's ch cashing checks. Your your your mouth's writing checks your body can't cash. Well, guess what, NATO?
Your mouths have been writing checks your body can't cash. I mean, you got the Germans publishing this thing saying, "We're ready to go to war against Russia in 2029. The Brits are
one year behind. We're ready to go to war in 2030." Mark Ruthie saying, "We got to have a war like our grandfathers fought." The Russians are like, "Really?" German grandfathers, they lost to us.
The Russians don't care. Russia wanted to avoid all this, but it was thrust upon them. So screw Romania. If you
don't want drones flying into your territory, uh, whether it's accidental or guess what's going to happen in the
future, non-ACal, then stop supporting Ukraine.
Stop carrying out acts of war against Russia. All of NATO are parties to this conflict. This is openly acknowledged as
a proxy war between NATO and Russia. The United States and Russia. Marco Rubio
said that guys in case everybody knows who's got Ritter to speak on it. Rubio acknowledge it. NATO's acknowledged it.
It's a proxy war which means we are parties to the conflict which means we can be attacked
legally by Russia. So I don't give a damn about a drone flying into Romania.
I don't lose any sleep. I don't listen to the yapping coming from the pathetic Chihuahua in Europe right now. It's meaningless yap. Tell me one word that
came out of a European that resonates meaningfully in Russia. One. Give me one where they're concerned. Give me one statement made by a European politician
47 minuteswhere the Russians went, "Whoa, gosh, I shouldn't have done that. This is serious now." Because somebody in Europe said something, "Russia doesn't care.
Europe is irrelevant." And you know who's deathly silent through all of this? The United States. The only voice Russia actually cares about is silent.
Why?
Because the US just lost a war against Iran.
Okay, you remember General Donahghue last year.
We can take out Clintrad. We have the ability to go in and overwhelm their air defense and area denial weapons. We come in and take them all out. Hey, Donahue,
you just tried that against Iran. Didn't work. And now you want to go up against the Russians in Kenigrad. They will squish you like the bugs you are. NATO
has no strength, no relevance, no viability, nothing. All talk, no action. Russia doesn't care.
Russia's made the decision to defeat Ukraine, which means to defeat the collective west. Russia's more than happy to limit the battlefield to
Ukraine, to grind the West down indirectly. But if the S wants to expand it, Russia's ready to make that call.
The decisions have been made. Narishkin did not publish the seven decision-making centers in Latafia uh for on a whim. He did it to say, "We
have made the decision to strike these targets. Now just give us the excuse to strike." And there's other target decks being developed too. The production
facilities for the drones are being used to attack by Russia are being uh identified and readyied. And Russia has non-uclear means to strike them. The
arric missile by the way. So I don't care. And nobody cares. Nobody of significant cares what the Romanians
think about a drone strike in an apartment building. Nobody cares because it's a non-event. I'm sorry for the people that were injured. I really am.
But Russia's not losing any sleep about anything that's being said in Europe in in regards to this.
Um on the Archnik, we you mentioned the college students. Ukraine hit a college apartment building uh unfortunately
killing 21 college students. In response, Russia had a major attack. It was about 90 missiles, escanders, about
um 600 drones and they used the Orishnik as well in Kiev. And then the um Russians made a statement to tell
everyone to leave Kiev if you're a foreigner and if you're living in Ukraine to stay away from military complexes, governmental buildings, and
buildings that house intelligence services. And then apparently Lavrov got on the phone with Rubio and told him
something similar about some major attack that's coming in Kiev. What's your understanding of this?
My understanding is that uh Ukraine with their British masters directing them uh with their German guidance
system, their American intelligence um pushed it too far. You know, they've gotten away with murder, literal murder.
50 minutesUm and Russia's sort of Vladimir Putin has not been in the business of trying to escalate this conflict. Russia has a winning hand in Ukraine called grinding
everybody down through a war of attrition that's costing Ukraine millions of lives, costing uh the Western Alliance the totality of their
defense industrial output. There's a reason why Europe isn't hasn't have a military today because it's all been eaten up inside Ukraine. Um and so, you
know, Putin doesn't want to expand the conflict. So every time there's a red line, which are legitimate red lines, and they're crossed by the West, the
Russians, you know, they slap a little bit and they just keep going. They don't they don't seek escalation. Um, my dogs agree with me on this.
The the Bakista.
Yeah. Well, believe me, my dogs have more oomph than anything Kirst might have. Um, but and they're just
Pomeranians and a Chihuahua myself. my Chihuahua kick their Chihuahua's ass.
But uh anyways, back to what we're talking about. Um but this murder of 21 girl, this was a
strong, you know, when when the British and the Americans empowered the Ukrainians to go into Kur because that was a NATO offensive in the Kursk in August of 2014. Straight up NATO
operation planned by NATO, executed by NATO using Ukraine as a proxy. um the the villages on the border, you know,
the the young people, the healthy people, for the most part got away. The elderly, hundreds of them stayed behind.
They were all murdered. They were all murdered by the Nazis. Literal Nazis.
They weren't just murdered. They were raped. 80-year-old grandmothers raped in front of their their family, then butchered. And and these Nazis filmed
it. Then they went off to fight the Russians and the Akmad special forces and the 810th brigade of the of the Russian marines killed them because
that's what Russians do. They kill Nazis. They're very good at it. And they killed them and they collected the phones and they have the images. This is not, you know, speculation. This isn't
52 minutesIsraeli propaganda about what happened on October 7th. You know, the movie nobody ever sees. Um, this is real
stuff, real video. And the and yet the Russians had every right at that point in time to take Ukraine off the face of
the earth. But Vladimir Putin ate that and said, "No, we're just going to kill 80,000 Ukrainians that invaded Kursk, make a Sunumi buffer zone, but we're not
going to change the direction we're heading, strategic direction." when the British empowered um the Ukrainians to do operation spiderweb I think it's
called uh you know the trucks the drone trucks that they then sent out and they sent the drones they struck bombers strategic bombers that should have had a
nuclear weapon response but the Russians didn't overreact they said okay we can have every atrocity
committed by the Ukrainians Putin wrote it out Zolinsky is getting ready to launch a
major drone offensive in June. It's a British run operation. The British are the ones who have directed it's all a British plan. Um and the British, you
know, providing him with 16 to 20,000 drones. Zilinski is bragging about putting 6,000 drones in the air over Russia in a day. Uh and this is all
heading there. And the Russians still are like, well, we're not going to overreact here. We're going to ride this thing out. And there's increasing
frustration inside Russia, not from the liberal elites, but from the conservatives who are pro-war wonder.
And there just growing frustration that why aren't we doing anything? The perception that Russia can't finish the
job starts to resonate. Um, and Putin still wasn't going to overreact.
Then they murdered 21 girls in their sleep. Well, I think 18 girls, three boys in their sleep. college students, teachers, teachers. These are the people
whose job it will be to educate the next generation. These are the people that are necessary for society to survive, to
continue. So, in attacking these students, you're attacking the future of Russia. You're literally bringing into
fruition the Nazi ethos of cultural genocide
to destroy a people, to destroy the nation, not just lives, but everything they stand for.
This is the straw that broke the camel's back. This impacted Russia like in the west we will never understand.
There is no turning back from this.
There is no forgiveness. this is the red line that should never have been crossed and you can't identify it. It's just one of those culminating moments. You know,
had they struck this school a month ago, they might have gotten away with it. But right now, with everything the way it is, emotionally, Russia
cannot allow this to go forward the way it was.
And so, Russia made a strategic decision that they are terminating this all negotiation. There are no more negotiations. Russia's not going to
negotiate. Only unconditional surrender on terms dictated by Russia. That's it.
Ukrainians are going to get the same deal that General Krebs got in in Berlin and punished in a Russian court or they're going to blow their brains out
or they can flee, you know, like the Nazis did. They can run away to uh Brazil and Argentina, wherever Nazis go these days, United States, Great Britain, France, you know, all the safe
havens of Nazi ideology, but they're not going to stay in Ukraine. It's over. Uh that's the decision Russia made. So the first thing the Russians did is um the
the attack that you saw was not the punishing blow against Ukraine. It was to punish those who attacked the college and the archnik actually hit underground
facilities that were used to for command and control and to assemble the drones.
Drones which were launched from the airfield next to the um circle of uh facility. Um they struck um I I love I
love the pro- Ukrainian lunacy. you. The Russians hit a museum. The Russians hit a shopping mall. The Russians hit
civilian targets like you idiots. The Russians hit FP1 drone factories because the Ukrainians brag that they don't have
them in traditional factories work because the Russians would hit the factories. So they they break them up and they put them in basement of museums. They put them in the garages of
shopping malls. They put them in gymnasiums of schools. Ukrainians admit doing this. And the Russians know it. And they took it out. They took it out.
But they took it out at night time where they didn't get too many collateral damage. I think the total number of civilians killed was six was an archnic
and 90 missiles coming in and hundreds of drones. They killed six civilians.
Yeah, the Russians are targeting civilians, you idiots. They're not.
They're blowing up the defense industrial capacity and the drone warf fighting capability of of Ukraine. But now that's not enough because that was
just punishment for the attack. What's going to come next is the eraser of Ukraine. And it's not going to happen in one night. It's going to be a campaign.
Uh look at a statement that came out of the Russian um Duma by from somebody in their defense in the defense committee, you know, because I I'm of the opinion just blow up the parliament, erase it.
But he said, "Why?
It's an empty building. You want me to use a $50 million arrest against an empty building?" Doesn't make any sense, does it?
Blow up the president building. Why?
It's empty. use Arashnik to blow that up too. No, we're going to use the Archnik against the underground command and
control center at the moment when people are inside it. So, we will determine when we're going to strike. We will say
there's people there now we need to kill send the arrestic and kill them. Um, and that's what we're going to see. This is going to be a campaign that unwinds as
targets present themselves and the Russians will use the weapons necessary to eliminate these targets. Uh, it will be punishing. it will be long duration
and it will be fatal to Ukraine. Now, Russia can accelerate, for instance, if Ukraine decides to play stupid and um and attack the St. Petersburg
International Economic Forum or get continue long range drone strikes into Russia's strategic depth, Russia can intensify things because understand
every time you do something, and the Russians prove this in their counter strike um the other day, the Russians collect all this information. They have
the intelligence and so the Russian retaliation will be instantaneous. Uh so if you choose to escalate then you just increase the target deck for the
Russians to strike and you know it'll it'll accelerate the uh process of um you know erasing Ukraine from the the
map of significance. Um the other thing too is if Europe wants to play this game, Russia's ready to bring it into Europe. Again I remind the Latvian states that if you allow Ukraine to use
your territory as a drone corridor to strike St. Petersburg, you will cease to exist. That's why I'm sort of excited to be in Russia next week at the St.
Petersburg International Forum. Um, I'm speaking, which is an honor, but I'll also be looking into the sky, seeing if the Ukrainians want to commit suicide.
And then I'll look over the horizon to see if uh Estonia, Latafia, and Lithuania still exist because they will be erased, too. Russia's not playing
games anymore. They murdered 21 college students. They murdered the future of
Russia. The s the symbolism alone of the the horrific nature of this attack, it wasn't an accident. Just understand
this. This wasn't a case where they went, you know, oh, our drone went off.
One drone flew off like the Russians. We didn't do that. The Ukrainians say, "Well, you jammed our drone." No, no, no, no, no. This was at least four FP1
drones with a different kind of drone overhead in a command and control function doing overwatch. The four drones came in to a target that was
selected uh based upon artificial intelligence. be Palanteer helped generate this target for the expanded target deck for the expanded campaign.
Um it was a school but the according to AI it was a school that had a military connotation. This is why the Ukrainian
there was a Rubicon drone operators there. No dude last month there happened to be a uh a a a business you know a a
career day at the college. Not this one by the way a different college um where the the Russian military came in and did a career day. The people in the audience
are college students. It wasn't just with with the drones or anything. They they law enforcement, um, you know, border security, the military, and the
military guys said, you know, what we're, you know, one of the things we're looking for most are drone operators.
And they brought in two guys from Rubicon who said this, you know, this is this military recruitment. We do that every day in the United States. Every
single college has a military recruitment. Does that mean the college now has become a combatant and has to be taken out? No. The law of war doesn't permit it. But AI doesn't operate under
the law of war. It operates under excess, you know, perverted notion of increased lethality, less legality. But
the the program, the same thinking that led to us striking Manab and murdering 165 Iranian students led to the striking
of this. They launched four drones. The drones FP1s were modified to have airto ground rockets on them. Um, it's a new modification that the Ukrainians are
very proud of. But when you have airto ground rockets, you don't just fire them in a vacuum. Um, you can take a drone and put a GPS thing and have the drone
fly to a to a coordinate, but when you have airto ground rockets, it's controlled. You fly in, there's a controller back there looking and firing. Now, we know how they did it.
There was Starlink. They had the small Starlink antennas on this. They're going up the command and control drone, sending that signal back. Why do you think the Russians know where all this
was happening? They were tracking the signals. The drones come in and they fire their rockets four times. Four waves of rockets. You hear the
eyewitness people talking about rockets coming from the sky. FP1 drones are propeller driven. They don't have rockets inherently. So firing the
rockets and then when it was done the final attack flying in. It was a phased attack. The first attacks with the
rockets woke the girls up. They started to come out of the college to to come out of the exits. The second attack came in and struck them as they were coming out. Somebody's watching this happen.
Somebody's directing this to happen.
2 minutesSomebody's pushing the buttons to make this happen. And then in the end, after they suppressed the girls, they run back inside. The four drones hit and collapsed the dormatory on top of them.
They were still screaming the next morning. The survivors, they couldn't get the bodies out. The rescuers are digging with their own hands because,
you know, I was a, you know, just so you understand, I was part of a urban search and rescue team here in New York, trained in collapse response. And, you
know, there's a way to do this. You have to come in and you have to shore it up.
It takes time. There was no time. So, the rescuers are putting their lives on the line. They're trying to come in. They're digging with their own hands.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are launching an additional attack against the rescuers. They're trying to girls out.
Um, and these some of these girls were screaming for hours before they succumbed to the uh to their injuries.
Their families are there. Could you imagine being the family of a college girl? You're sitting in her office.
She's going to be a teacher and now you have to come in and listen to your daughter scream to death while the rescues tried to come. families broke through the security and got on the pile
themselves and were digging with their fingernails coming off trying to dig through the soil to get to these people.
You want to know why Russia is going to erase Ukraine? I just explained why. And all of Russia saw it. All of Russia saw it. The world decided not to look. BBC
pretended it didn't happen. CNN was at the freaking site of the attack. CNN was embedded with the drone unit to launch this attack.
And you want to know why Russia's going to take Ukraine off the map?
Yeah, cuz it's over. This isn't going to happen. It's not going to be tolerated. It's done.
Scott, one other question on this. Um, the attack on Kiev that is coming, what is it going to what do you foresee happening in that specific attack.
Look, they've said what's going to happen. They're going to take out command and control decision-m centers.
They're going to take out defense industry. Uh the Ukrainians have, you know, one of the things Ukrainians have done, again, just understand all these
drones that Ukraine's manufacturing, uh they don't have a drone factory anymore because Russia took them out. So these little Mavic type drones, these quad, you know, FPV drones.
They they Ukrainian housewives have 3D printers and they print the parts in their homes and they brag about You go on Ukrainian social media.
Hi, I'm a housewife. Look behind me.
Stack of drones. I make drones in my own home on my own free time. You know, it's like, you know, people used to sell Avon products or something like that. Hi, I
sell beauty products on the side. Hi, I make drones for the Ukrainian government on the side. Uh, and entire apartment blocks are drone factories. The
housewives make the drones and they go down the basement. They assemble the drones and they send the drones out to the military. U, the Russians are tracking all this. They know it all. One
of the reasons why they gave the advanced notice is that basically if they're going to take out defense industry, they're going to have to take out defense industry that has committed
a war crime. By the way, if you turn a protected facility, that's called a an
apartment complex of residences into if you embed a defense industry without evacuating the civilians, you're committing the war crime. understand
that Ukraine is a 100% repeat offender when it comes to war crimes in terms of, you know, using civilians to shield
their military. They've done it from day one in this war. They don't care about their people. The Russians are going to take all of this out piece by piece by
piece by piece. Now, knowing the Russians being the Russians, uh they're probably not going to drop the apartment buildings up front. They're going to take out the assembly places, too. But
some of those assembly places are in basement of apartment buildings. So there will be consequences. So they they said if you're a Ukrainian civilian,
stay away from defense industry. That means if you're a housewife making drones, you might want to stop making drones.
And if you're live in a building, you know that the basement's being used to assemble drone parts, you might want to say, "Get that the hell out of here
because it's going." The Russians will do this over time. It's not again when you have a $50 million arrnic, you're
just not going to waste it to to make a statement. They already made the statement. They fired two two that way.
And the third one they fired actually did something of significance. But again, the Russians aren't in. They don't need to impress anybody about arr
been there, done that. They got three t-shirts. The next time the Russian expired, it's going to be to take out a specific target for a specific purpose.
the same thing with all the other Econders and and uh you know the Kinsols and all the other different uh precision
guided hypersonic long-range strike weapons. They're not going to waste them, you know, for a light, you know, this isn't a shock and awe. This is
we're going to kill the bastards and Russia's in the business of killing the bastards and it's going to unfold on a timeline that Russia dictates over a
calendar that Russia decides. In the West, there's a lot of people waiting for the big show. I think you'll be disappointed. I think there will be
shows. I think some of them may be big, but it's not going to be the carpet bombing of Kiev. It's going to be a
campaign that destroys Ukraine's leadership capacity, ability to command and control this conflict and to produce
weapons affiliate. And this conflict, this this may extend outside because as Russia terminates defense industry
capacity, it's going to flow outside to NATO countries. And if NATO seeks to, for instance, the FP5 Flamingo, if they
continue to provide this to Ukraine, who continues to launch it, the Russians may start striking the Flamingo production facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, and elsewhere.
Yeah, fair enough. Um, Scott, we got some breaking news. Donald Trump, the person you be speaking about, has made another statement. Apparently, the
United States of America are going to be lifting the blockade. He said that the US will be lifting the blockade. And apparently, he's in the situation room
to make some kind of final decision whether it's a deal or not. But apparently the blockade has been lifted.
Well, it has to. I mean, again, we lost the war. We didn't win the war. We lost the war. And we have to have oil flowing
100%. But my bet is that we're going to find a way to screw this up. Not because Trump has to spend this as not
the lifting of the blockade, but we won the war, therefore there's no need for a blockade and all that. But how do you do that when $300 billion of reparation being paid?
He has to find a way to put lipstick on this pig. And I don't know if he's found that yet, but he has no choice. I've said straight up, we have no choice. We
lost the war. We are looking at political collapse of Donald Trump after economic collapse. This summer is going
to be a very hard summer no matter what happens. What Donald Trump needs to ensure is after we have the collapse of July, there's a recovery in August. And
if we can have a recovery in August, he can say that's on me. That happened because I made decisions. I beat the Iranians. I spun this the way I want.
9 minutesAnd now look, the price of gas is going down. You're everything's good. Come on November, vote for me. I'm the guy you need to vote for. That's his only
chance. So, he has to do this. He has no choice. But I again, let's just wait because the insane man is gonna, you
know, we need to reimpose the blockade because the blockade isn't really lifted. We just temporarily pulled it back. But PX is ready to reimpose at any
moment. The ch the Iranians don't abide by this. We'll be watching them. We'll be watching them from afar. We're never far away. I mean, that's the kind of
crap he's going to pull. He can't admit that we got our asses kicked and we're going to have to flee home and uh and put band-aids on the wounds. No, he's
going to have to pretend that we're we're the dog doing the peeing.
No doubt. Scott, um I know people can support you in many ways. I know you've got some amazing uh work that you're going to be doing in Russia, some project that you haven't told everyone
about, but you are. It's something amazing. Uh how can people support you?
Because I know you're an independent journalist. You work on your own and you try and give people the best analysis that there is out there. So, how can people help uh support the work that
you're doing? I know you've got your own Substack and which other ways?
The best the best way is to go to scottrader.com. That takes you to my substack. First of all, understand my Substack is not under a payw wall. Um,
all the analytical work I do, I do free of charge. Meaning that um because look,
a lot of the people that write me are pensioners. They're like, "Scott, I I got my pension. I don't have any. I can't I can't I can't, you know,
subscribe. I never asked you to." Uh I'm I'm writing for you. I'm the goal of what I do is to empower people with knowledge and information to bring the
reality of Russia uh to to America. And if I put a payw wall on that, that sort of cheapens what I'm trying to do. So my work is open to everybody free of
charge. Go to my Substack and you will find it. There's some exceptions. For instance, um I self-published a book, The Scud Hunters, a history of the Gulf
War. Scud hunting the Gulf War. You know, that's not traditional geopolitical analysis. has a special project, special product that I use to reward the people who do subscribe.
There are people who do paid subscriptions. The paid subscriptions pay my salary, just so you know. So, I'm grateful to everybody who says, "Hey,
here's a paid subscription. Thank you very much. I didn't make you do that.
You wanted to do that." And there's a difference. I'm not making people pay.
I'm the people that do it is because they want to do it because they support it. And I'm deeply grateful. The subscription to Substack pays the salary. It puts the roof over the head,
pays the electric bill, allows me to buy monsters and diet cokes, and I'm deeply appreciative of them. Um, the trips, however, are paid for by donations.
That's a separate thing, a donate button there. Um, I, as you said, I'm a I'm an independent journalist. And let me just highlight the difference between me and
the other journalists out there, most of the other journalists out there. I had 40 FBI agents storm into my house uh with a search warrant that was empowered
by a Ukrainian intelligence report passed on the United States said I was a Russian agent. Um Ukrainians view me as enemy number one. They have for for a
long time now. They've been they've tried to kill me actively. They used to have a fake letter bomb to my house. Um you know this is what the Ukrainians do for a living. They got the United States
to pull my passport and raid my house uh and harass me to shut me up to silence me. Um, I was accused of being a Russian
agent. Now, that means that, you know, perceptions create their own realities.
I'm not a Russian agent, but it means going forward, I have to make sure that I can't allow anybody to do anything
that paints me as somebody under the control of the Russian government. Just so people know, even though there's sanctions against Russia, journalists have a general license to go to Russia.
If I wanted to, I could have Russian hosts pay for my airfare, pay for my hotels. There's nothing illegal about that. Vast majority of people who travel
to Russia have their tickets paid for by the Russians by Russian hosts and whether it's the government or non-governmental entities and have their
hotels paid for it. I pay for everything because I had 40 FBI agents come into my house and accuse me of being a Russian
13 minutesagent. And I can't give some dumbass prosecutor uh any leverage to say, "Well, he had his airflight paid for it.
Who's paying for that? Let's raid his house again." or his hotel was paid for by the by somebody. Let's find out who.
Nope. I pay for everything. I pay for my food, my taxis, everything. When I do an interview, I pay for the studio. I pay
for the producer, for the editors, for the lights, for the sound, everything.
And it's pretty damn expensive to do it by yourself. It's very expensive. The donations pay for this. And I'm deeply grateful for the people who have donated. Um, this is a work in progress.
It's a constant work. Yes, I'm leaving and I leave with the resources I have.
But just so you know, um I'm going to Iran eventually. I've made that decision. That's going to happen. But I've told the Iranian government I have
to pay for everything. Everything. Um I need help doing that. I am not a rich man. I don't So
the when you donate, you're you're you're paying for this work. You're underwriting this
work. And it's work that will benefit you because everything I do from these trips is not hidden in a firewall. I will publish videos. I will publish
writing things. I will make meeting. I will open doors, begin conversations that pay off in ways that go beyond simple articles and uh and videos. Um
I'm I'm going to Iran. I can't tell you the exact date because that hasn't been agreed upon, but that's going to happen.
But when it does happen, I have to pay for everything, which means your support makes that possible. So, if you go to my Substack, first of all, that's where
you're going to find the product. And two, that's where you can subscribe if you want to. Paid subscription that pays my my bills. That's my salary. Or you
can donate to fund these trips. Um, this trip that I'm going on is fully funded.
Thank you very much. In fact, is yesterday was the day it became fully funded. It's taken it down to the wire.
Got a little closer than I wanted it to be, but now I have the ability.
Everything I plan on doing in Russia now will happen as as long as fate allows it to happen. But it won't be a case where I say, "Well, I have to throttle down
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But now, just so you understand, when I come home, I begin preparation for the next trip, which means it's resource
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your support and I thank everybody who's done it in the past everybody's doing it today and everybody who will hopefully do it in the future no doubt everyone should be supporting
your work because like you said you give the information and you have got this trip in Iran planned and the trip in Russia we're very much looking forward to all the information that you release
uh throughout that and you do take your time out and basically come on all these various interviews to relay the information. So Scott, thank you so much for taking your time out to join us. We really do appreciate you.
Thanks a lot. Have a have a great day.
You too as well. That was Scott Ritter guys. Make sure you subscribe to his substack and do help support his work.
Like he said h it is important work that he's doing. It's very uh helpful work and so do support it and also like this
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17 minutesWe got Dan Connels at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.
And we've got a couple of more interviews in between that are about to be lined up as well. We had um Professor Mirandi a couple of days ago and Pepe Esbar as well. So we have so many great
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agree that they will never have a nuclear weapon or bomb. The Herm Strait must be immediately open. No tolls or
unrestricted ship traffic in both directions. All water mines, if any, will be terminated. We have removed
through detonations numerous such mines without great underwater mind sweepers.
Iran will complete the immediate removal and or detonation of any mines that are left, which will not be many. Obviously, this is hallucination.
Ships caught in the straight. Hermoose uh ships caught in the straight due to our amazing and unprecedented naval
blockade will now be lifted. Which will now be lifted may start the process of heading home. Say hello to your wives,
husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite president. The enriched material sometimes referred to as the
nucle nuclear dust which is buried deep underground with with virtually collapsed mountains caused by our
powerful B2 bomber attacks 11 months ago sitting on top of it will be unearthed by the United States of America which it
is agreed is the only country along with China with the mechanical capability to do so in close con coordination and conjunction with Iran.
plus the IAEA and destroyed. No money will be exchanged until further notice.
Other items of far less importance have been agreed to. I will be meeting now in the situation room to make a final
determination. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So, he's going to the situation room. It does seem like a deal
is close. It looks like a deal may be agreed. Let me know in your comments what do you think. Do you think this 60-day deal will be agreed? Let me know
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you

PART 1 OF 3

They're not even hiding it anymore - The Grayzone live
The Grayzone
May 29, 2026

Cerie Bulivant, a passenger on the Gaza Sumud Flotilla, joins The Grayzone to share his testimony of experiencing heinous abuses and torture by Israeli soldiers after the aid boats were intercepted. Max Blumenthal is then joined by Wyatt Reed from Beirut, who will discuss his coverage of the war in southern Lebanon between invading Israeli forces and Hezbollah. Aaron Mate also joins to cover Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and the latest in the US.



Transcript

Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the gray zone. It's uh full day.
We're going to talk about everything possible and maybe even bring in a few guests.
Um, we're going to talk about what happened with the latest Gaza Summud flotilla
where Israeli torture, Israel's regime of torture was broadcast proudly for the
world to see and forced some actual u diplomatic crises with Europe. And we're we're going to talk to one of the
passengers on that flotilla who experienced some torture, witnessed some, saw what it was really like inside
uh the the hellscape of Idomar Beng, the serial killer, who is security
minister. We're also going to talk to Wyatt Reid, our friend and colleague from Beirut, who has been covering the
Israeli assault on southern Lebanon and has some really unique insights and has produced some incredible work for us that you can see up at the Grey Zone.
Actually waiting for him to get into studio um because he was just he was just coming in from out of Beirut. and I
want to cover the possible looming military invasion of Cuba, what's really happening in Venezuela. I dropped a new
investigative piece which kind of wound up scooping the Washington Post and Reuters and some other majors might come in, but I think I provided more
background than them on the imperial viceroy of Caracus who is
cutting deals some of the most important deals uh lucrative deals extremely corrupt
deals without any government portfolio someone who's not even in the US government. and what I think is really going on overall in Kacus. I've been
learning a lot in the last several days especially. So, I'll talk about that.
Um, we'll talk about the prosecution of US anti-war activists or not or or or uh federal harassment of
US anti-war activists who tried to provide aid to Cuba. Uh there's
a possible Iran deal in the works. I don't actually think it will ever come to pass, but Trump is putting forward
making some noises about one while threatening to blow up Oman.
And I think there's a lot more to cover beyond that. But so, uh, that's what we
have on tap. And now that I've kind of killed as much time as possible. And yes, I'm for those of you who watched Judge Npalitano yesterday, I'm still
recovering from that. He he made me go on at 9:15 a.m. It's a little early for me. Um, so forgive me for the slow start
here. I want to bring on uh a really someone I've known for years who is a
fascinating person and uh very hardworking activist in the UK uh who's been working on issues of uh
surveillance and the UK security drag nets for many years and is now very working very closely with the Gaza
Summud flotillaa and has uh experienced some of the most harrowing treatment at the hands of Israel's uh
concentration camp guards who are actually, you know, in charge of preventing humanity from reaching Gaza.
His name is Kerry Bulivant and uh welcome him to the show to describe what happened with the Gaza Summud flotilla.
I think this is a story that hasn't gotten enough coverage that's truly shocking.
Um Carrie, welcome. Uh for some reason, I'm not seeing you. Maybe are there can you give us a thumbs up?
Yeah, there's something a little bit wrong with your connection.
Okay. Um Okay, here we go. Well, we can hear you. We can hear you pretty well.
Okay, cool. Um having some trouble with with the uh data where you are.
Turn the camera off and on. Hang on. Is that better?
Yeah, much better. So, Carrie, uh, just introduce yourself to the Grey Zone and then we'll talk about what you experienced as you attempted to sail to the Gaza Strip.
So, first of all, thank you very much for having me on, Max, and and I'm a really big fan of uh the work that you do. Like, it's incredible um the uh
amount that you've done. Um, and it was worth saying while I was on the flotilla, um, there was a Albanian colleague of mine, comrade, who who was
also sailing, and he was actually researching all of your work, uh, to to inform the work that he was doing. Um,
uh, speaking in Albanian to to to the Albanian people. Um, and yeah, uh, like your work's really reaching out further
than you can even imagine. Um, I really appreciate Thank you for that.
Thank you for saying that. That's great to know that, you know, I was reaching out into international waters.
Um, yeah, unfortunately I unfortunately I personally can't reach the militarized frontiers of Israel any longer because I
think they would deport me. But uh, you know, well, they they they deported me a few days ago, so we could we could be in that boat together literally perhaps.
So, so, so tell, so tell us uh you know what did you join this flotilla knowing that you could face danger and and just tell us what happened.
So, I mean, it's not knowing that we could face danger. Um, it was evidently clear to us um and explicitly clear to
us um the sorts of uh experience that we would have if we chose to go through with this. Um I joined on the flotilla
um at CIT and before I joined uh 22 boats had already been um kidnapped in
an act of international piracy um by the by the Zionist regime and 170 people had
already been through this uh torture factory. Yeah.
And so when we got to about to join the boat, there were already people there with with um broken arms with their arms
in in a cast um with like plastic face guards to protect their broken nose and cheekbones with people with uh with
whiplash collars on. Um and so it was that was like a welcoming to the scene.
Like these were the people who had already done it and many of them came again immediately rejoined the flotilla to sail straight back into the situation
again because really at the heart of this is the genocide the genocide of the Palestinian people which has been going
on for for 75 years now and has accelerated um in the last 3 years. Yeah.
And it this is the test of our times. My mother um God bless her she was uh um very
heavily involved in in uh South African anti-apartite movements in sort of the
struggles of her time and really that was the the environment in which I I grew up in and
I now have kids and I need my kids to know that I will put myself in on the line inshallah to to to protect a better
future for them. Um and and that's what I would hope uh that they they will do when when their time comes and they're grown up and and if they see injustice.
We all have this obligation um to to stand against these genocides, right?
Um and apartheite and and so that's that's why I was there. I was there um in honor of my my my mother and and our
Irish heritage and the colonialism that the Irish people suffered. and as a and as a um witness for my children um so
that they can uh know that we can never allow genocide to continue.
So, um, I guess for those who aren't aware of what took place and some of the footage that Israel's own government put out, I mean, here was a scene.
Here's one of the scenes of Idomar Beng actually attacking activists and, you know, he was taking selfies, I think, with his own daughter in the room where
activists were being held in torture stress positions. Um, well, this is just, you know, for public viewing.
That's Ben attacking her. The security minister of Israel in charge of the police.
Then you can see this part in here um in the tent. I was actually inside. It's just about to appear. Yeah.
Um they're forcing activists to listen to Hatikva, the Israeli national anthem,
while uh held in stress positions with zip ties.
So inside this tent, this is where uh I I I saw Bened. You saw him personally?
Yeah. Yeah. Um he came in and was like this tent was a tent of hell. The torture that was going
on in here um while they were laughing and joking. I mean the absolute joy that they were taking from the from the sadism in this tent was um shocking.
Yeah. Uh what what kind of things were they saying and doing?
So for example, just behind me there was a um a Brazilian uh uh comrade of ours.
Um she was wearing like a a woolly jumper with stars on it and she was zip tied um behind her back with her hands
and they they lifted her up by her hands by the zip ties. Um she started screaming that uh they were they were
breaking her shoulder joints. Um and the another um uh IO soldier came and and literally soccer kicked her in the face.
Um uh a a huge kick while she was was like suspended in the air. Um while Bengavir is walking around, the the
guards are are singing along the with the with the national anthem, laughing and joking. All the while they're they're kicking people in their head. Uh
my my head was right next to the uh the edge of the tent. So I didn't get kicked in the head, but we were getting like they were stamping on our feet. Um bearing in mind we're already in a stress position. It's already painful.
um kicking us in our sides and I was the thing that shocked me was how much they were enjoying all of this. Um, I'd never
I've obviously followed the the issue of Palestine for for so many years. Read so many stories about it, read stories about the games that they play where
they try to shoot children in the same body parts on on certain days. And but yet when you see it for your own eyes,
they're they're laughing and joking and and and hackling together as they as they dogpile um people who are tied up.
And part of our training was we we in no way resisted uh anything that they were doing either physically or or even in
words. Um part of our training was like you don't swear at them. You don't you don't um attack them or accuse them of
anything. And they still um just absolutely battered people. And the the primary people that they went for were
the women, the elderly and and the the the smaller the smaller men. Um they I
aw them pick up a a guy uh a very very slight uh build and they slammed him
down on the ground um twice and then uh hit him on both of his ears at the same time. Um and like the day after when I saw him, he he'd gone deaf in one ear.
Um I still don't know if his hearings returned in that ear. Um but they'd cracked all of his ribs on on on this
side as well. Um, even when we were freed, um, and we were finally back in Turkey, you had to be so careful when you were when you were, uh, hugging
people or or like celebrating with them, uh, that they were free because so many people had broken bones. I think at
final count around 75 people had various broken body parts. Um, including someone
with spinal injuries, um, uh, I saw a couple of people with, uh, broken feet, um, and broken arms as well. lots and lots of broken ribs. They were going for
the ribs primarily because they're that's a more hidden wound um and a more
hidden injury. Um and if you think about there were about 500 people on the
flotilla. So if 75 or so um had broken bones, that's about 20% of completely
nonviolent people who were tied up that had bones and and body parts broken um in this vicious way.
And uh some of the female activists I pub I uh highlighted a testimony yesterday by one who I think was an
Irish female activist uh described sexual assault uh sexual humiliation on
a very systematic scale. Is is that something that you witnessed or know about?
Um yeah yeah it is unfortunately it something I experienced as well. Um
uh I I had to hold a young man in my arms um uh afterwards and he was telling me
about his experiences and and they physically raped him. Um
uh my experience wasn't that severe. Um but they came up with me with a knife threatening to um uh cut off my my
private parts. Um, and this was unfortunately
like completely systematic. Um, when you went in for the strip search, you were completely at their mercy. And
um Max, I don't I don't think I can explain to you like
holding a a a young like 20-year-old guy in your arms and and he's crying because of what they've done to what what how
far they took that. Um and yeah, go They took it towards I mean I
don't I don't obviously you know details will not be necessary but they they they raped him.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is what they've been doing in St.
Timman and other torture centers to Palestinians. Uh yeah Gaza doctor from Alshifa and Indonesian hospital Adnan Bur was
essentially sexually assaulted to death by Israeli prison guards.
Yeah. they they they inserted their batons. Um, and the the thing is that we understand
as as as um activists who have been following this the levels that they go to with the Palestinians. Like even this
we suffered like a tiny tiny proportion, but this was um done with such glee and
with absolutely no fear of repercussions.
Um they knew they had cut blunch and we were I I really need to reiterate this.
There was no resistance. There was nobody was struggling, swearing, fighting back. We were delivering seeds to Gaza to regrow food.
And this is how we were treated. Um, imagine imagine how they treat Palestinians who don't have access to to
to Max Bloom at all and don't have access to like these sorts of voices to to speak out in this way. Um, it's it's
terrifying. It's it's shocking. And it's only just now um uh even though these cases have been known about for years
only because the New York Times suddenly reported it that that people are suddenly starting to take some sort of notice. But I mean it's really horrific
when you see it and experience it firsthand.
Well, this was happening independent of Ben Gir. This this torture, am I am I correct? like he came in for the kind of
photo op to put it all on display and to proudly show what Israel's values were, but this was happening anyway. Correct.
So for me, from what I saw, the worst of the physical torture, the beatings um happened in Ashtad Port where Ben was.
Okay.
Um and and that's where the the the sexual assaults mainly happened as well.
Um there were two prison ships. on one prison ship, um the one that I was on, they treated us horribly. There was no
space to sleep. There was no um floor mats, uh barely any food, barely any water, but they basically um for the
most part left us alone. I mean, they shot my captain, uh of of our ship for no reason and and left her with a
horrible wound on her leg. Um but mostly our ship was considered like the good ship. Yeah.
to only be shot on my ship. That was the good ship. The other ship, the other prison ship, the one that you saw in the video with the
blue containers, um that was the other prison container ship. They treated them like actual hell. They were firing um
every two hours into the containers with uh uh with uh to to wake everyone up and then throwing stun grenades um to to
disorientate people while they were trying to uh rest. There were far more sexual assaults. There was a man who I
spoke to. Um they tasered him over 20 times until his black his his uh back
had almost no skin on it. Um I mean the these prison ships, both of them were so overcrowded that there was no space for
everyone to to sleep. Um and it was the the closest thing I've ever seen to sort of like depictions of slave ships when I was growing up. like people just
sleeping on top of each other in in shipping containers with no mats, no no uh nothing, just uh laying on the on the cold hard uh uh metal floor.
this uh PR move by I don't know what to call it by Immar Bengir Hazbbor move a
reverse Hazborah uh was received very negatively by the Israeli foreign ministry by uh Israeli
ambassadors including uh Yaky Lighter here the the ambassador here in in Washington who is also sort of like the
manager of the Trump administration and uh they said that you know these are not our values and that Ben Gavir, what he has done has hurt Israel's image. This
is not who we are, which I found funny. I think Ben Gavir is sort of like the id of Israel. He's
like the true soul, which is why he's there and why he's increasingly popular among the Israeli youth. He represents
the direction of Israeli society. Here's a a foreign ministry tweet just simply declaring these are our values showing them treating flotillaa passengers and
here would you like some water and uh we're just talking to you nicely and questioning you and you know you get to
it in a nice chair and uh oh she's having a nice time grandma we're we respect the elderly
uh you know what do you have to say about that? What did did you see any of that sort of treatment? Are those their values?
So for me it shows the the the values that they um that he betrayed was by
showing people um uh what what was happening. Um that was the thing like that's the that's the golden rule here
is that these things happen but we don't tell we don't we don't tell and uh we we leave space for for our sort of like
liberal Zionist friends to to obiscate with Benavir there's no space left for obfiscation left um so that's the that's
the part that he's going against as I said they were taking so much joy in this um agony they take they took
pictures of the people in the seats before you're in those seats, you're in a a stress position, push down as far as they can with your arm lifted up as high
as it can, um if you're walking down from one place to another and another officer is walking in the opposite direction, um they're going to punch you
in the face, um as a prisoner just passing by, how in a normal workplace, you say hi to your to your to your person that you're you're working with,
they just come and just hit you straight in the straight in the face. And they did that to me numerous times as as I was going. And then they sit you down in
this seat for for to to answer some questions um from a civil servant um about like what your nationality is and and uh do you agree to be deported?
And that's the moment that they come in and take a picture. Um, I saw one uh tweet from from from the ministry. Um,
and I'm actually in the picture uh on the uh ship and uh uh it says uh uh people celebrating being uh flotilla
people celebrating being uh uh onto an Israeli ship.
And the the irony of that situation after they've just beaten the hell out of us, we were we were congratulating
each other and and and and giving each other a warm reception as comrades who had survived and gone through this
situation, but they want to take that and twist it and and and and put it in exactly the opposite light. Like we're
grateful um to Israel. They held me on the floor while while my face was on the floor and my hands were up also touching
the ground. And I pose no threat to anyone. They they tased me for over a minute um uh constantly
um until somebody answered one of the questions that somebody else answered a question that had nothing to do with me
even. Um this is this is their values and the the fact that they they were smiling and laughing and loving that
along the way. Um that was their values and that's what they showed and that was part of what the flotilla was about.
There were there were many objectives to the Floyd, but one of them was to um use
our bodies to to to to show their values.
Well, that certainly succeeded. I mean, if that was one of the objectives, it definitely worked. Uh they could not
resist. And I think from their point of view and from Ben Gver's point of view, he's playing a role which he considers deterrence. He believes, you know, as
Meer Kahana, his mentor, believed that if you do not demonstrate total force to your opponents, whether they're, you
know, the the leftists who support the Arabs or the Arabs, there are no Palestinians in their mind. Uh they will
you cannot negotiate. They will keep coming back for more. And so he believes he's warding off future flotillas.
Do do you think that that succeeded on their part that less activists will volunteer to try to challenge the you know try to scale the walls of the modern day Awitz?
Well, I'd say this. They captured um a whole load of people who within two
weeks were back on another flotilla um going in again. And I can only speak for myself in this regard. Um, but I'm going
to be going up and down the country um raising funds to to help put another flotilla together. And um even though
like while we were sailing I spent five uh five six days like completely seasick. I have apparently no sailing
ability in me at all. Um and uh was throwing up. I'll be straight back on that flotilla again. um to to to
keep on putting applying pressure. Uh I said earlier on my friend was shot in the leg. Um and that was horrific. She
thought she was going to die. Um it looked like they might have hit her her femoral artery and and thank god they didn't. Um but the our medics managed to
uh uh get a tourniquet on her leg and and cut off the bleeding very very quickly. Um but uh even she said after
that after being shot in the leg that she would rather that the um that the soldier was there guarding us and shooting her in the leg for crossing an
invisible line than being in Gaza or Lebanon and shooting a Palestinian child in the head with a lethal round for
crossing an invisible line. So the these actions um we have to keep
doing everything we can to expose the the the crimes and the true nature of Israel. And they're losing they're losing this this this war of public
opinion um in in your home country like the the Americans are which has generally been their staunchest allies
are finally sort of shifting away. Um, in a lot of Europe now, um, nobody wants anything to to to do with Israel. Um, I
think the UK, where I am, is one of the few countries now where, um, they still have sort of like, uh, bilateral support from the two main parties.
Yeah.
But we might have Zack Palansky soon um, a Green as the main party on the on the left and, uh, he's taking a very strong stance on uh, on on, uh, Israel as well.
and he's Jewish and he's getting attacked uh in as an anti-semite. Yeah. Right. Using a kind of classic anti-semitic cartoons
and caricatures. The British press is going after his family. They're calling his like former roommates and his former roommates friends, cousins, dogs, owner.
It's crazy. Uh so you you you wouldn't know anything about this, Max, would you?
No. like uh as a Jewish person who speaks out for justice like uh they're never going to attack you and accuse you of being an empty semite.
No, no, no. Or no, they just say I'm Yeah, I'm Yeah. Jewhating Jew. I'm like I'm not I'm actually a you-hating Jew.
But anyway, and and why are the self-loving Jews such fascists? Why are they such haters? But but that but anyway, back I mean it it is interesting
to see how uh increasingly isolated the UK is and how the flotillaa forced this issue. Uh this is Giorgio Georgia
Maloney the Italian prime minister. The images of Bengavir are unacceptable.
It's inadmissible that these demonstrators are subjected to this treatment that violates human dignity.
And she uh summoned the Israeli ambassador and demanded an apology, a formal apology from Israel. Many other European states, I think France also summoned Israeli ambassadors.
I think the UK summoned the ambassador, but they were it was a much more um calmly worded, clinically worded tweet.
Maloney has previously condemned the flotillaa. There are many many Italian citizens who who go on these and help
coordinate them. So, you know, the it there's much more pressure on her to condemn it. And this uh to me represents
something of a diplomatic shift that could I don't do you think this could lead to any concrete change in policy from the uh non non-commonwealth European states?
I mean I really hope so. Ireland was very close to to bringing in a law that would have applied full sanctions on on
Israel. um even though if they had done so they would have been in breach of EU law and would have been fined fined a
million pounds a day um for for taking those sanctions but they were still within like five or six votes of um
applying those sanctions and taking the fine anyway.
So the EU the EU will fine you a million pounds a day if you sanction Israel w without uh the the full cooperation of
the EU. So for a country to do it independently that would be a breach of EU law. Yeah.
Um yeah. So but even with that they the the Irish uh parliament were very very close to passing the sanctions anyway and saying basically finess if you like.
Um I'll say this about the the consulate staff. Um, so when we arrived in t Turkey after like 4 days of like
horrific torture, um, I went to the to the to the British consulate staff and I told them that I'd witnessed sexual
assault and I needed to give them a statement about that um, and that uh, this was a very important matter. And
three times they said, "Yeah, yeah, no, that's really really important." And then walked away.
And I had to go up to them. I went up to them three times and tried to raise this issue with them. and three times they walked away without taking a statement
and basically refused to do anything. Um uh as we went to the medical center afterwards where people were getting
their their uh uh wounds checked and and and everything uh officially taken down
for all of the uh results of the torture. Um there were Irish, there were German, there were Belgium uh consulate
staff there till 3:00 in the morning. I literally saw them with my own eyes. Um the Brits were gone uh from the from the
center within the first hour. Um they didn't even go to the health center. Um they just left the airport. So this was
the this was the the the quality of the response from the British consulate. And honestly, I've come to expect no better
from them. Um the the Irish the Irish consulate uh were telling me I need to to pull my finger out and get my I get
an Irish passport cuz my family are originally Irish and then they were like then we can come and help you as well. I was like if ever there was a strong
argument for uh for doing that now's the time.
Yeah. I was reading a testimony from a Kiwi activist from New Zealand who is actually Mauy and said that uh you know he was brutalized
brutally beaten. They threatened to throw him in a room with dogs to be tortured. Uh he witnessed many of the horrors that you did and then you know
upon return to Auckland uh they were not received by anyone. There was simply no government support for them. Complete
silence about what took place there. Uh in Australia, we saw a green member of parliament uh speak up about the sexual
assault and torture, but uh you know, Labor was pretty silent. And go ahead.
I can go I can go one up on that um on on that um New Zealand uh uh case. As we
arrived in the UK, um the British delegation, there was a a press conference organized in a hotel next door, um and the police went and
threatened the hotel that if they allowed them to do the uh um press conference that they they would uh uh bring problems for them use using prevent legislation.
What?
Um so it said that it would be radicalizing. And so we we had to go and do the press conference out in the in a in a field um not too far away from the
airport because of the hotel where we had booked were um uh basically uh intimidated by the British police to not
even allow us to have the press conference there.
That is insane. That's incredible. And and welcome to the home of democracy and free speech.
Yeah. Yeah. The West Valleyian values are increasingly looking like Israelian values in the UK.
This was how activists were received in Bill Bao, Spain by Basque police. And I want you to address this as well. This was pretty wild.
They're still wearing the sweatuits that you know that you were put in in prison that you see so many prisoners come out of Gaza wearing.
This is really hard for me to watch cuz I was um in the cells with a lot of these people and and I mean they're really brave. Wonderful.
These are Spanish police. Wonderful captains. Yeah. Yeah.
Why are they beating them? Like they just walked out of the airport.
So to to to my understanding um even though the Spanish government is generally um uh pretty uh positive on
the on the issue of Palestine um a lot of these uh activists are from
the Catalan region and uh uh and so because they were um uh support uh uh
Catalan independence and and uh that's why the the Bass police came in at them like Yes. Um, okay.
A lot of the a lot a lot of the the skate the sailors and the skippers were uh were Spanish. Um, because the flotilla actually began in Barcelona.
So would you say you know Pedro Sanchez has been one of the most outspoken European leaders, Western leaders condemning
what Israel's been doing in Gaza, its attacks on Iran. But, you know, he he was essentially greenlighting this
treatment of these activists because of their affiliation with the Catalan independence movement.
That's my understanding. Um, but unfortunately, you know, in in in my experience, uh, cops lean into fascism all too quickly.
Um, and are often sort of like a a rule unto themselves, even if they're even if they're politicians,
u might have different positions. Um, I think there's a lot of local politics that's that's going on there in in in in that scene.
Yeah.
It's really hard for me to watch cuz like they literally just come from being um beaten and battered and abused in
similar ways by the by the Israelis and then they come home and their own country does the same thing.
Yeah. I mean, that was uh just kind of shocking to me. And I saw the
Israeli foreign ministry promote it and say, "Oh, we we we condemn this and you know, you know, we're not." Basically to say, "We're not the only ones." And actually, your own governments are
worse. Which was extremely cynical, but but typical of them. Just as typical as them condemning the UN for placing
Israel on a blacklist of nations that practice sexual abuse on a systematic scale in their prisons when they had
lobbied the UN and that very body to place Hamas on that blacklist. So they they said the UN has no validity. This
is a fake body, but they were lobbying that same body back in uh starting in 2023. Just everything they do is completely cynical.
Uh yeah, rules for thee, not for me. Um and and
this has been the uh the um operating procedure for for Israel for as long as
I followed this this conflict. Um, and you know, like I remember being a
kid and and my mom explaining to me my mother had spent time in um in the West Bank uh before I was even born um
working with um Palestinian organizations and groups. And yeah, it it's
um this is a story that as we said at the beginning, it's been going on 75 years um from before either of us. Um
we're twinkles in the eyes of our parents.
Indeed. So where does the where does the float I mean you're still working on the flotilla? Yeah. Yeah. What's next?
So, um, what's next is, um, actually I I can send it to you as as well. I've got, uh,
footage of our boat that was scuppered and sunk. Um, and so one of the other boats managed to get back to it as it was sinking and and get some footage of that. Um, which, uh, I can send to you.
I don't think it's been made public. Um, yeah.
Uh, but what's next for us is, uh, I'm going to be doing, uh, a range of talks, uh, across Europe. um with comrades um
at mosques um uh with as many people as I can um trying to to
um show what happened. One of the things that one of the other objectives of this flotilla was to uh create firsthand
witnesses who can speak from personal experience about what what had happened.
Um, and so we have a duty to the to the people of Gaza to to keep speaking out and, uh, and to keep working on this
issue. So, um, as we do those events, we'll hopefully be raising money for for more boats and and and a bigger
flotilla. The last flotilla that went was about 40 boats. This one was 82 boats. So, um, hopefully the next one
will be 120, 150 boats. and we will we will come back with numbers until we get that aid through to Gaza.
Well, Carrie Bulivvent, thank you for the work you're doing to break this siege
and to confront this modern-day Holocaust. Uh, and thanks for bearing witness to what took place in Israel's
torture prisons. your voice is really valuable right now. So, we're really we really appreciate you bringing it to the gray zone to our audience here and uh
best of luck. Thank you so much, Mac, for having me on and and like really I I know I said this at the beginning, but your voice has been one of the most
important voices uh in in documenting this genocide and in um breaking doing groundbreaking investigations, which
honestly too much of uh independent med media, although it's needed, but too much of it is commenting on just what's
happens. Um and you guys are are doing real investigative work, which is so valuable.
Thank you so much for saying that. I really think that's that's the essence of what we what we aim to do. Uh I think that's the heart of our work at the Grey
Zone. So, I'm really glad you recognize it. And if I wasn't running my mouth right now, maybe I'd be working on an investigation, but wanted to uh draw
some attention to this situation. So, uh thanks a lot and we'll continue following your work.
Let's keep in touch. Let's not leave it so long next time. For sure. Yeah. It's been a few years. All right. Yeah. Peace. Take care, mate.
All right. Harrowing testimony from Kari Bullivan of what took place on the Gaza Summud flotilla
or or after they were abducted in international waters. Important to note that the US State Department has fully
effectively greenlighted their torture and threatened them with or actually applied sanctions to their leadership um
criminalizing them in advance of Ben Gir's um propaganda torture festival.
The Trump administration has also removed Bengir from its sanctions list.
Beng was sort of like a a fig leaf which the Biden administration used sanctioning him and some other settler
terrorists to avoid sanctioning um figures closer to the military industrial military intelligence
apparatus responsible for the Gaza genocide and Trump removed sanctions on Ben Gvere. So many green lights were
given by the Trump mafia which uh oper functions as the US government right now to conduct this torture on European
citizens, American citizens, people from Australia, New Zealand and around the world. Uh, and you know, if I were going
to be invited to like the Oscars or I don't know, the Met Gala, I don't
think I could actually bring myself to go to the Met Gala, but I'd wear one of those gray suits that you see people emerging from the concentration camps
maintained by Israel in uh, in order to draw attention to the fact that there are over 8,000 Palestinian ians in
Israel tortured Israeli torture dungeons being held without charges. They are hostages. So to draw attention to the hostages, that's what I would wear if I
were a celebrity, but I'm not a celebrity and I could never be a celebrity because I would wear that.
Maybe, you know, just an idea. Um I don't know if we have any A-listers watching us. I know we got some like
celebs who watch the gray zone on the low. Um, we need to do more to draw attention to the fact that there are
over 8,000 Palestinian hostages being tortured right now. And you know what?
And and we in the United States, we look at the civil rights protesters who crossed the Edund Pettis Bridge and
were beaten with trenchons, who were beaten at Wworth's lunch counters, who were hosed down by Bull Connor
protesting segregation in the Jim Crow South as heroes. The Democratic Party fetishizes them. These activists, what
they are doing, putting their bodies on the line against the modern-day Nazis in Tel Aviv who are holding
millions of people in open air prisons, destroyed their cities, are still
subjecting them to genocide. what they are doing is no less heroic and they're risking they're taking an even greater
risk to their lives confronting a a military that kills civilians for sport.
These are the heroes of our time and one day we will we'll look at them the same way we looked at the civil rights
protesters who are now held up as the icons of the Democratic party that still
supports this apartheid state. Uh and with that we're going to be joined by my colleague Wyatt Reid who's in Beirut um
to cover another angle of this situation. He's looking from the north on the apartheid colony
uh from Beirut and has been to the south of Lebanon and many of you who follow the gray zone are familiar with the work he's been putting out from there and and
before that from Iran um as the first American reporter to report from the destroyed B1 bridge outside Thran. one
of the first American reporters to report from the Minab school where over 130 school girls were massacred by the
Trump mafia and the and its uh Israeli managers. Uh Wyatt, what's going on?
Hanging in there. How about you, Max? Staying alive.
Yeah. Uh so I I like your background.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm uh I'm trying out a new one today. So, if you guys uh if the audience likes it, we'll keep it.
I like the vibe. Um so, a lot to cover. Israel is now
conducting one a historically massive ethnic cleansing operation in the south of Lebanon. It is it has issued
evacuation orders for this biblical city of tier which is it's got a population of over 200,000 people. So that's like
an entire ward of Washington DC being evacuated by a foreign military. They've also issued evacuation orders for Nabatia which means that the evacuation
orders extend north above the Leani River. Um, pre previously Israel has said that they wanted to establish a
buffer zone below the Leani. But now they're pushing people north and this is causing enormous human damage. What they
I mean human kind of humanitarian catastrophe. And then when people are cleared out of their homes, they destroy the homes. If they stay in their homes,
they bomb the homes. If people try to flee their homes, they bomb their cars.
and they're escalating today because uh Trump is moving closer to a seems to be edging towards some kind of deal or um
improving negotiations with Iran um as a means of sabotaging that. Tell us what you've been seeing, what's going on
today, if there's anything you can add to my kind of bird's eye view of the situation.
Yeah, I think you summed it up pretty well. uh the the prospect of peace. I mean, it's Israel responds as they
always do whenever there's a threat of peace breaking out. They take advantage of whatever moment they have to launch
as many bombs and missiles and air strikes as they can before this piece actually takes hold. Um, and
presumably that's, you know, in part because they have some kind of target list and they want to wipe as many names off it as they possibly can and will
accelerate whatever operations that they had. Um, but it's also because they want to sabotage any kind of negotiations.
Um, and they just want to inflict as much damage as they possibly can on the civilian population to teach them a lesson.
Yeah. for being too friendly with Hezbollah and for not uh you know turning them over to the Israelis.
Um I have uh I'm hoping to soon travel
to southern Lebanon to see this firsthand. Um, but in the meantime, I
can share some thoughts from a colleague of mine who is currently basically
trapped in the middle of the evacuation zone. If you um pull up, I I I included
this in the element. Um there's a the the Israeli forced evacuation notice,
forced displacement order, uh includes a a map of the area
in the city of Tyra. Um, so you can see the kind of tip of that peninsula is the
only place for miles where people are allowed to be and will not be that's this area right here, right?
It's a Christian neighborhood. That's right.
Um, so that's that's the only area deemed worth preserving the where human life is allowed to exist um at the time
being. So that's where my colleague and most journalists are stationed along with thousands of people who are now
sleeping there in their cars. Um you know finding whatever kind of hotel or shelter they can there. Uh I got an
update from my colleague and he said that with the ordering the the issuance of these
evacuation orders over the past um that covers basically everywhere south of the Latani and and a handful of
places north of it. Um he said sur which is the Arabic word for for tire. Uh he said
it's a ghost town. Uh he noted that there were three buildings that were targeted without being uh identified in
advance uh where a father, daughter, and son were killed. Uh he says they're using very a new type of missile that
they haven't seen before that's extremely uh destructive.
And I was told that there were 95 air strikes in the past in the
south by Israel. Um yeah, he told me that uh in this small Christian neighborhood in in uh Sur, it feels like
you're trapped in a box. He said, just waiting for things to happen. Um the Israelis have made clear their intention
of not just creating this buffer zone, but of actually bringing up troops up to hold it at least for some period of
time. Uh who knows if they want to permanently occupy it as Idomar Bengavir has stated his intention of doing.
Yeah.
But uh he said uh they've we've got a power outage. This happens from time to time.
Um they've infiltrated Yamore and parts of Zatar uh trying to reach Shok Castle. That's Bowfort Castle.
Yeah.
Yeah. Bford Castle is a you know a historic archaeological monument that was struck by Israel directly I think two days ago.
Yeah, exactly. Uh and there's also there's I should mention there's an award-winning Israeli film called Bowfort about uh the military
defeat by Hezbollah of the Israeli military following operation Grapes of Wrath when they you know the final phases before they pulled out in 2000.
So this is symbolic for them because they were holed up there.
It's symbolic and it it is strategically valuable. Uh just perched high up. It's
useful for surveillance and um yeah so there is symbolic and strategic value there. Um
that's that's the update that we got. Um they're also beyond these, you know, we we've seen a lot of footage and we could
pull up some videos of the uh attacks in Ty and in Navatia. Um but they've also been bombing in Sida. They've been
bombing much further north. And this is kind of something that I I predicted
um a couple weeks ago with the Israelis. This is Tire.
This is Tire just a few hours ago. Uh this came right after Trump announced
uh you know that he was moving towards a ceasefire deal with Iran and this was two days ago in central
Tire uh what it looks like
what Israel has done it's gazification mass destruction destroying people's
homes they work their whole lives for killing any family who's there evacuating hundreds of thousands of people.
Yeah. Some somewhere in the neighborhood of 400,000 by some estimates I've seen.
Just a a massive quantity of people. Um and there's really there's not any place for them to go. I mean, there's already
around a million people who've been forcibly displaced. Uh they live uh you
know, where they can. Plenty of them are up here in Beirut. Um they live in these kind of makeshift refugee camp zones
often or just uh there are whole streets in central Beirut where it's just it's like almost a kilometer of tent after
tent after tent after tent after tent after tent after tent. Yeah.
And when you interview these people, plenty of them are fairly successful. They, you know, are business owners.
um you know you'll meet people who are living out of out of tents and you know
I I talked to one older gentleman who had worked his whole life and he had uh um in in Nabatia region I'm forgetting
the exact name of the village but he had finally managed to build a supermarket a few years ago and so he had his house
that he'd finally um finished construction on this supermarket market that it was just uh starting to make money off of. Um and then Israel
destroyed both of them in the opening salvos of of its war on Lebanon. And so
now he's living on this waterfront refugee camp um out of a tent uh with a
BMW that he can't put gas in because he doesn't have any money left. Um, so that's that's kind of, you know, it's not just uh really impoverished people.
It's also anybody from all levels of society to just get everything that they have wiped out and destroyed. Um, and
then it's, you know, it's the gazification effect. It doesn't really matter if you have money. You're just uh you're going to be forcibly displaced
and you're going to be living on the street anyway. Um, so that's and so what what's what do you what do
the the what does the population see Israel's objective as here and you know what kind of effect is it producing
politically? Is it making them more supportive of the resistance? The Dahi doctrine that Israel conceived when it
destroyed the Dahi district of southern Beirut, which is Shia majority in 2006, which was conceived by a opposition
figure in Israeli politics now, Gadi Eisenkot, who comes out of the Israeli military in general command, uh was
aimed at demoralizing the population or attacking the support base of Hezbollah in order to because they can't fully
destroy destroy Hezbollah's military apparatus or its and they couldn't hit its leadership at that time. Um, is that
having any effect now based on what you your conversations with people who are fleeing the violence?
Yeah, I haven't met anybody who's fled from the south that has anything nice to say about Israel or for the US really
for that matter either. They're fully aware who's backing up and arming this.
Um, I think there there's obviously a divide, a religious divide in the
country and Shia overwhelmingly hate Israel with the passion and support
uh the resistance very strongly. Uh the Sunnis are a little more divided, you know, maybe closer to 50/50 in terms of
whether they actively support the resistance. uh although um very few of them would support
unilateral disarmament by Hezbollah without uh the end of the Israeli occupation.
Um and then the Christians uh especially the Marinite community are are really the only bastion of of any kind of
pro-Israel sentiment. Uh but even them, a lot of them, if you'll talk to them privately, are are not thrilled about
what Israel is doing. Um and you know, even if it's just as self-centered as them not wanting to fill their Christian
neighborhoods full of Shia refugees, uh they have their own reasons for not wanting to, you know, destroy the
country. So um it's really hard to find people who are who are supportive of
what Israel is doing even among the kind of historical rival groups of the the
Shia where you know Hezbollah draws so much of its support from.
Yeah. And uh since I kind of brought up a political angle
over a week ago, Lebanon dispatched Lebanese the Lebanese government dispatched representatives to Washington to negotiate with Israel in violation of the Lebanese constitution.
Uh this was under the watch of President Joseph Aun and Prime Minister Noah Salam who doesn't even have a political party
and actually has no base and seems to just be kind of like a functionary.
Um what kind of legitimacy does the Lebanese government have to negotiate with Israel and what what's their objective?
It seems to me, just to answer my own question, that they gave Israel the green light or enabled Israel by
conducting this negotiation to escalate as they're doing today and did yesterday in um Tyra and Nabatia.
Yeah. Well, there's uh the negotiations are basically ongoing right now uh or at least as a few hours ago.
Representatives of Lebanon and Israel met at the Pentagon with uh the uh US ambassador to Lebanon reportedly in
attendance. Uh yeah, again, this is Yeah, this is illegal.
According to Lebanese law, Lebanese citizens aren't allowed to contact any Israeli resident or citizen, let alone um the actual government of Israel.
Right. So yeah, that's that's not allowed.

PART 2 OF 3

It doesn't matter apparently. Um this government is not popular. know
it's widely seen as kind of corrupt made up of of self-interested um elites who have no
real concern for the day-to-day affairs of the average Lebanese citizen. Um so
you know there there's not a whole lot of love here for them either from what I've seen even from you know even apart from uh people who are sympathetic to
the resistance uh the government is widely viewed with distaste and it's
widely seen as as incredibly corrupt. Um the uh you were asking about how uh you
well and the reason they're meeting with the Pentagon is to discuss a disarmament plan which you know the Jerusalem Post has reported the CIA is also devising to
disarm Hezbollah with the Lebanese military somehow like this joke of a neoc colonial military set up by the US.
Uh I mean how's that going to go down?
Well, not not well according to uh Wafi Sappa, the senior Hezbollah official that I spoke with last.
Okay. So, yeah. So, you spoke to Wafi Sappa. Who who is he and how significant was this interview? And then we'll I
guess we can um cover his response to the question I asked.
He's generally described as a senior Hezbollah security official. He was the head of their uh public liaison unit for
many years. Um he's certainly someone who was authorized to speak on their behalf. Uh he described
uh this as kind of a bad joke. Uh he said first of all he suggested that the that this would not probably happen. And
I'm kind of inclined to degree to agree that um it's widely understood that and
and and they also confirmed that um you know any unit that is created by the
United States with the explicit intention of trying to disarm Hezbollah will be treated as a hostile force, will be seen as a legitimate military target.
Um, so first of all, you know, they they would whatever unit would likely be destroyed by Hezbollah um probably pretty quickly.
But uh you know, if not, I think this would be a very obvious segue into a kind of civil war. And though this
government may be seen as sellouts and cowards and corrupt, um there is still some hesitance to believe that they
would actually intentionally create a civil war for the country that after all their family members still have to live
in as well. Um so some kind of disbelief I think on the side of uh resistance factions. Um, interesting note to note
with these negotiations is that these figures though are seeming
to prolong the Israeli military assault um somewhat intentionally. Some would
argue there have been a lot of reports this week that um that Aun and and you
know his his prime minister with no party have been uh attempting to
distance themselves from the negotiations between the US and Iran that they don't want to be included in
this ceasefire agreement that Iran is is insisting on. you know, Iranian negotiators obviously um have been quite
open that they will not sign a ceasefire deal with the United States if it does not include Lebanon. Um and there are a
lot of reports this week that Aon and company are doing their best to prevent this from happening. Um, I guess, you
know, either for personal self-interested reasons, like they don't want to become sidelined and they don't want to have this decision made for
them, uh, or or, you know, I I I couldn't possibly explain to you why they wouldn't want peace uh, in southern
Lebanon, which is something that basically everyone in Lebanon you talk to wants. Um, other than out of spite or
personal uh, you know, personal reasons and uh, selfishness. Yeah. Um,
yeah, it it it seems like this government will possibly have to fall on
its own sword here. Um, I want to talk about some of the resistance's operations, which are increasingly
successful and are really frustrating the Israeli military. But um before that uh I we should highlight some of your uh
interviews and the work you did in covering the heroism of Lebanese first responders in the south who are being
targeted uh deliberately by the Israeli military and it looks as and
and and one of those uh rescuers that you interviewed who's also a noted photojournalist and was widely beloved
in this in this area and known to many foreign correspondents, Ahmed Harreri was killed, targeted in I think a triple
tap strike after Israel targeted I can't show this footage, it's horrific. A father and his daughter in their car.
Um, let's play your uh report.
It's on Instagram, which is a little tougher to work with. Here there's an air strike on this place by the Israeli army.
We're seeing the air strike and he's des this is Ahmed Herreri described being in front of a home. You're you're
speaking to him in front of a home that was targeted by Israel in which I think an entire family was killed.
Yeah. 13 people were killed including a family of nine people. And this was last Wednesday that I met with him um
Wednesday morning and took this interview and probably wasn't uh you know I wasn't necessarily going to
publish it until I got a a message Friday morning that said they killed uh Ahmed Harreri, you know, they killed
this that uh rescue worker that we spoke to two days ago. And um you know in the
clip you can see uh he is one of the handful of paramedics that were um
trying to evaluate uh the victims there the father and daughter. I believe they were they were
likely killed in the first strike. Um, and they were checking their vitals, checking to for signs of life when uh,
Israel comes and hammers them with a a second follow-up strike, which is something that they've
come to be known for. Um, you know, when I first got here, I I was almost, you
know, nothing really shocks you about Israel's behavior at a certain point, but, you know, I'm I'm telling I'm telling
myself, they can't possibly be intentionally targeting all of these rescue workers, can they?
But now, you know, it's just it's it's on film and this isn't the only time this has happened. It's impossible to think that anything else is happening.
It's just the most logical rational explanation. Yes, they are intentionally targeting and killing rescue workers.
Yes, they're intentionally targeting and killing journalists. No, there is no line that they will not cross. anybody who is deemed
a sort of useful participant in day-to-day life, um, anybody that society depends on, they are going to be
smeared as terrorists and executed on tape.
Yeah. They'll say these are the these are from the the scouts network of Hezbollah, so it's legitimate to uh to kill them, you know.
Yeah. They're linked to the Boy Scouts, you know. That's that's that's who these guys were. They were uh
young guys that were, you know, in their younger 20s and they've just joined something to help people. They just
wanted to help their communities and that is cause now for a death sentence from Israel.
Well, let let's watch a portion of your uh short documentary on Nabatia rescue who are some of the the bravest people on the planet. I mean, they're going in
to rescue people who have been wounded in bombings and drone strikes knowing that they could be targeted next and will be targeted. And uh this clip
begins at the funeral of uh the son of one of the rescuers who was himself a rescuer and he watched his own son be
targeted by Israel. Uh we're going to and and then it will show you some of the GoPro footage that these rescuers
themselves are filming uh in the midst of triple tap strikes because they want the world to know that they too are
being targeted. Uh let's let's watch this for a couple minutes. Uh I'm going to take a quick break.
It wouldn't be the last time Israel killed a member of Nabatia Rescue.
A few weeks later, on April 15th, Maddi Abu Zade was cut down when Israel followed up an attack on an ambulance
with a series of consecutive strikes on the rescuers who came to help them. In all, Israeli drones attacked the rescue
crews four times. Footage from Nabatia Rescu's GoPros shows the moment of the final strike.
Ya Allah. Ya Allah. Ya Allah.
house.
I spoke to the surviving rescuers who recounted the horrifying moment their colleague suffered a fatal wound by their side.
Could you tell us what happened on April 15th?
Okay, so um we knew there were strikes happening and uh but we didn't know knew
that Italies then uh the they told us that
another team high they were they got strike while they were getting a wound personnel.
uh they were not uh uh they didn't let them approach so they strike them.
I think it's is it in this interview here where you can actually hear artillery from them and another from Yeah, I think it was incoming rocket
strikes. Um, you if you go to the end of this interview, you may have there's a I
cut to a separate interview halfway through, but then when I conclude this interview uh with this rescue worker.
Okay. Well, we'll just pause it there.
Um, but that that gives, you know, people a sense of what these rescuers are dealing with. One was killed, I think, earlier today. Um, just horrific
atrocities unfolding. And you know, another reason why I want to focus on this issue is that I mean, you know, we're witnessing ethnic cleansing from
the south on a historic scale, Gazification, and it's really not getting the same coverage that Gaza got
and the attacks on rescuers. Have you seen much? I mean, uh, Alex Crawford from Sky News really stands out among
the pack of mainstream reporters from corporate networks, but not really seeing much from the rest of Western media.
Yeah, I mean, when I've interacted with some of the
Western mainstream media outlets, um, I haven't been terribly impressed. Um
you can see some some halfway decent coverage on you know Alazer English. Um,
I uh I interacted at one point with the NPR correspondent here in when when we
were in the South actually right after I filmed that interview with Ahmed Herreri
and she uh you know not not to not to knock
anybody who does this because obviously I I think it's wonderful to when people uh feed the animals which are often also
suffering down here. But she was very concerned with um the cats almost more so than the people. And I looked up her
social media presence later and the number one video um that she had put out
by far and away most viewed was uh story about cats in Lebanon. Um, so that
that's, you know, she was complaining to me about how difficult it was to get access to Iran. Um, and I just, you know, sucks to suck, you know.
So, there's a lot of cats there.
There are a lot of cats. Maybe that's uh that's should be your hook next time. Of from NPR.
Yeah. So that's you know the mainstream media is here but they are not and then oftentimes I think they I think many of
them do have their heart in the right place and it's not like they're oblivious to the suffering of the people
going on. It's just that the editorial process is so thoroughly zionized that
any halfway decent report just gets watered down by the time it makes it um
to to print um and all of the useful information gets left on the cutting
room floor. And so you would end, you know, by the time the editors get done
jamming in phrases like Hezbollah stronghold and um you know, IDF claims,
it's basically functionally indistinguishable from like a police report about how they killed somebody in their community. It's just there's no
there's no real substance to it. Um you you would be forgiven for coming away with that. Um thinking that there was no
ethnic cleansing, that this was just some sort of police operation to to clean up South Lebanon because the Israelis are just concerned with rooting
out extremism or something. Um, so the there's there's systemic problems within
these mainstream media organizations that prevent even um people with their heart in the right place from getting the news out.
Yeah. Um, it's it's it is a systemic problem, but it's also an editorial problem in
London, in Brussels, in Washington, where where they may have the reports, but they're not going to to highlight them and emphasize them or the New York
Times is not they're not they're not going to decide to do a cover story at this point on
hundreds of thousands of people being driven from their homes or the D9 excavator testimonies that I've been compiling.
for a possible future report where they're just openly admitting their job is to destroy as many homes as possible for the Israeli military and they get paid per home.
They're being paid per home like mercenaries and uh you know some of them have actually been hit in FPV drone attacks
but no one in Israel really cares because these are like the dregs of society and come from classes in Israel that are you know resented or looked
down upon by the Ashkanazi elite. So, you know, keep sending them in. It's it's effectively it's increasingly a
mercenary army, you know, where units are just being mixed all together and
told to carry out as much destruction as possible and it's not being it is not getting the attention that
Gaza got. But I remember also with Gaza, there was this kind of turning point where slaughter got so intense.
At first it was the, you know, it seemed like the turning point would have been the Alahi Baptist Hospital strike where
the doctors at this hospital in Gaza delivered a press conference amid the
bodies of those who were clearly killed in an Israeli artillery strike. Then Israel comes in and tells all the
networks, "We have video breaking breaking of a uh Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket misfiring." and they show
some badly pixelated lights in the distance claiming and and produced their own oent analysis claiming that's a
misfired rocket as though it could do that much damage at all. Uh and and and that was it. Then CNN immediately kills
its coverage. The New York Times walks it back. Everyone kind of walks back and it bought them so much more time before the media finally decided to uh start.
I think it was it might have been the New York Times article of doctors coming out of Gaza with X-rays of children with bullets inside their bodies uh including
their heads and and that that was kind of like their effort to to pivot a little bit. It always takes a few months before people are slaughtered before
they pivot. So the the the alarm has not been sounded on southern Lebanon and on Lebanon in general. And uh you know I
also think the the the concept of Hezbollah as a resistance organization
that is defending a nation against an onslaught is it's it's just forbidden to acknowledge Hezbollah as anything other than a terrorist group in Western media.
But uh I mean Hezbollah clearly has changed. I think you put that question to wafiki safa which is you know are you
fighting a war of um you know is is this a war of kind of like
uh for the region or is this a war of national defense?
They view this as inseparable from the the Iran war conflict from Gaza. Um to
them it's it's all one big war um in which uh the Israel is basically leading
the US into a huge strategic error uh which is the only way you can describe the Iran war of massive unforced error.
Yeah.
That handed control of the Strait of Hormuz directly to the Iranian government and will likely remain with them for you know may maybe forever. Who knows?
Um, barring some kind of outside action, the
another I think interesting point that he made was describing the introduction of these drones to the battlefield,
which is something that um they said is really taken place over the past 18 months. and he described it as kind of
the resistance's response to the pager attack in September 2024 that um killed
dozens of people, wounded uh thousands uh over a thousand. And uh many of those
killed and wounded, by the way, were not Hezbollah members. They were children in many cases. Yeah.
And most of those who were targeted, who were within the realm of Hezbollah were like reserveists. They weren't even on the front lines.
Yeah. Um and there was, you know, the the Israelis had this kind of twisted
uh explanation of saying, you know, we we would rather not kill all of these people. We want to leave them alive and
crippled and basically to serve as uh a warning to other people. This is what's going to happen to you. Leave you
disfigured and unable to get a job. Um and you know uh the resistance response
was the introduction of these drones um which have been a huge gamecher in terms
of asymmetrical warfare especially given that Israel seems committed to overextending itself in the south of Lebanon.
Yeah. the I I really I don't understand the strategic value of trying to occupy
all this territory when they can't even defend their own supply lines. They just get blown up every day. There's another
FPV drone video of, you know, some Marava tank or an armored personnel carrier or just Israeli soldiers
themselves running out of the portagon and getting ex, you know, destroyed and and and blown apart by these uh
firsterson view drones. Um, so you know, I'm not I I think we had some some of that video queued up if not.
Yeah, let's watch. So, so the real story of this war is the FPV
drone, the first person view drone, which are produced in workshops by Hezbollah members and they're quadricopters that are strapped with a
RPG and they deliver the RPG to Israeli positions. And the reason that Israel is unable to do anything about these is
because they're connected with to a fiber optic drone that stretches for a fiber optic cable that stretches for miles. And the by being directly
connected to a fiber optic cable, it's sort of an analog solution, asymmetrical solution to
Israel's jamming capacity. It also has uh you know this this laser system that can hit drones. So, Israel doesn't have
anything to defend against these drones with, and they're just with with with almost uh complete reckless abandon, hammering Israeli
positions and also hammering the Israeli psyche because the Israelis were told in November 2024 when Hezbollah signed a
ceasefire after the killing of Secretary General and kind of like spiritual leader Hassan Nasalla that they were essentially defeated if or or at least
defanged. And that's just simply not the case.
And you have Israelis returning to going to like medevac and to Rambam hospital in Tel Aviv every day and some of them
are coming back in body bags. So, here's a highlight reel. Someone Ron Burgundy put together, an account Ron Burgundy,
uh, that I think really is one of the I think it tells the story of this war for Israel as the war continues, which is
that they're going to be ground down as they attempt to hold positions and maintain a buffer zone.
A lot of these are Iron Dome batteries, too. You know, some of them are iron dome batteries or
they may be decoy Iron Dome batteries, but they're definitely hitting iron dome batteries and radars at some points. I mean, some of some of those Iron Dome
batteries are not being held down by cables. So, I'm just wondering like what is the deal with that? But
I've sped this up just because it's long.
You can see hitting a D9 excavator uh hitting like actual um logistical positions of Israeli soldiers.
You'll notice that they've put up some kind of netting over top of certain areas and it does tell it only advertises their position as bullet.
Yep.
You know, hitting those D9s, hitting the Toyotas, the smaller vehicles with an
RPG can do a lot of damage. I know the Merkava has reactive armor, but you can see in many of these strikes they're hitting from the rear of the Namar
armored personnel carriers and trying to hit the undercarriage of the Merkava.
So, we don't see what kind of damage they're doing, but you can assume they're doing a lot of damage in um when personnel is is exposed.
Everybody drew lessons from the Ukraine proxy war. And the lesson that Hezbollah
drew was that there is no real answer for a army that needs to move and
operate as a standard army uh not as a guerilla uh fighters. um they they have
no way they have no answer for drones, specifically those like you noted these FPV drones that have fiber optic cables,
which means they are immune to jamming and to uh electronic counter measures.
The lesson I think the Israelis drew was that we should hire a bunch of mercenaries and create our own foreign
legion and find idiots. um from either you know
westerners who are bored or more likely I think people from third world countries that want a decent paycheck and are willing to die to get it. Yeah.
But they've proposed, you know, 10 to 12,000 member mercenary army to come take the
places of all of these Ashkenazi Jews that don't want to die on the front lines and don't want to die in southern
Lebanon. Um so instead, you know, you get the sense that they're sending the Misraim, they're sending the Ethiopian
Jews, and um you know, now they're running out. They need to find some mercenaries to throw at uh southern Lebanon.
Yeah. Let's go to Peru and and find a lost tribe in the Amazon of a lost tribe of Jews and ship them over. I mean, that's they've been doing that.
Oh, yeah. I don't No DNA test required. In fact, specifically prohibited.
During the first Lebanon war, first invasion of Lebanon, there was this movement called the four mothers. And it
was led by four kind of very um upstanding Ashkanazi
women whose sons had been killed in the war. This is during the 80s. And they managed to organize large demonstrations
with thousands of people calling for an end to the war because so many Ashkanazi Israelis were being killed and they didn't want to die.
Um, you know, you watch the whole the whole shooting and crying concept came out of that war that, you know, we go to war and we shoot and we do what we have
to and then we come back and we we cry about having to follow these orders and we make beautiful art and songs and, you
know, dark songs and films like Waltz with Basher. Have you ever seen Waltz with Basher?
I think if I'm not mistaken, one of my high school teachers made us watch it.
Yeah. I mean, I could see that. I think it was it might have won an Oscar, but you know, it's the ultimate Israeli
shooting and crying film which highlights the Ashkanazi culture of the Israeli military, which is sort of like you have to follow this initiation
ritual to be a Zionist, but ultimately uh you hate it and then you just kind of move on with your life. And by ex by by
talking about it and going to breaking the silence and giving delivering testimony of all the hor horrible crimes you were forced to commit, blowing
children's heads off and so forth and bombing homes for that you expedate your sins and your guilt and you're welcome
back into liberal Zionist society. Waltz with Bashir presents the whole Lebanon war as kind of a dreamlike
scenario and Bashir referring to Basher Gamay who was killed uh the the Marinite right-wing falling
leader and you know it reenacts actual scenes that took place in that war but it's all dreamlike and it's only from the perspective of Israelis who um don't really take a moral stand on anything.
Bow for another film that I mentioned earlier, an Israeli famous film about the defeat of the Israeli military
in uh southern Lebanon uh in like after Operation Grapes of Wrath. That's another shooting and
crying film. Breaking the silence, it's directors. They they collect all these testimonies of soldiers, but they have no policy on refusal. And many of them are actually in the reserves.
Um, but they'll do tours of occupied Hebrron and they're like anti-occupation.
So it would is Isra Is Israeli society is in a place now, Jewish Israeli society, where they can't even allow
shooting and crying. Uh, so what remove that whole class of people from the war?
They thought they could do it with technical innovations and technological innovations like the drone. I mean, the Hermes drone came out of the failure of
the first Lebanon war to reduce casualties and therefore take political pressure off this militaristic fascistic government. They thought they could um
do anything they could to Hezbollah and now you know Hezbollah learned this lesson and the FPV drone has completely flipped the script and it's a political problem for Israel.
Um Sheer He by the way is someone who's doing a lot of work. um I would refer people to and he's a Israeli or maybe an
ex-Israeli uh who helps lead the um BDS movement from Germany and is doing enormous amounts of research on the
transformation of the Israeli military the IDF into a kind of mercenary army which I I think is like part of the
downward trajectory of Israel that that it actually other than its air force and Mossad is pretty much in deep decline.
Yeah. And there it's Hzbollah is only increasing its ability to
um to target and to to it's intelligence capabilities for example are far
superior to what I believe before I came here and before I uh spoke to Wafi Sappa
um who described uh he kind of gave me a hint as to the developments that they've made in terms
of their intelligence capabilities. Um when he noted that the operation to eliminate Colonel Mayor Beerman, Yeah.
who was the commander of the 41st Armored Brigade, which is the unit that famously killed Hendra.
Um he is critically wounded. Um you know, for all we know, he may be dead.
Uh the Israelis are not forthcoming about their casualty count, but um he
was critically wounded in a incredibly sophisticated drone strike um in which
you you can see the footage of it. Um this drone manages to enter into a
secure compound. Um, and it's basically the the command center of uh a what it
seems to be like a forward operating base. Um, and they managed to take out the commander of this unit
and they told me that they knew uh where he slept and where he rested. they knew his schedule and they tracked him there
uh when he was having a meeting with a bunch of u other significant Israeli military officials. So for them to be
able to obtain that kind of intelligence uh and and presumably they're they're
going to be able to replicate that again. That's another issue that uh the Israelis I don't think have a real clear
answer for. I have no idea how they're getting that kind of information.
Perhaps they've compromised some of the Israelis devices. U perhaps they're getting information fed to them through,
you know, from Russia or China to Iran to them kind of thing. Um perhaps they
have their own indigenous intelligence um capabilities and that they've developed within Israel themselves. Who
knows? But um you know what is very clear is that the Israelis are more
exposed to a uh to attacks than I think they've been in in decades.
Yes. And and and not just through FPV drones, but Iranian ballistic missiles have really punched some holes in
Israel's fake Iron Dome, which we subsidize as US taxpayers.
Turns out the United States was allow was doing the lion's share of
interception or attempted interception because Israel needed to preserve its own munition stockpile and the US burned through its own stocks which were
supposed to defend against China or Russia and you know the the real powerful reg revisionist powers.
And now just a little a little quadricopter with an RPG tied to its
belly has completely has entered the battlefield and completely changed the game. It's one of the I think one of the
stories of the year. I don't know what Israel's going to do about it. And you know I haven't played anything from your interview with Wafi Safa of Hezbollah
because it's it's translated with subtitles and I don't like reading over it. It's kind of boring to hear me read it. But everyone can follow it. We've
posted several clips. Um, everyone can watch it at the Greyzone at our YouTube channel. Um, but he he he he previews some other, in his words, surprises.
What was he referring to?
I sure wish I knew. Um, you know, it wasn't clear whether he was referring to
a new type of drone or another um technological capability that they're going to unleash
on the battlefield. Um, or whether this is just uh, you know, political
u, so I mean I I I wish I knew a little bit better. I didn't want to prod too much because he he seemed like he was
being kind of deliberately enigmatic about it. Um but uh if if the FPV drones are any
indication uh you know if I were an Israeli I would be pretty nervous about that. Yeah.
Um it it it really is remarkable that uh
the US military with its proposed $ 1.5 trillion budget has been completely stymied by Iran. And that is one other
one reason why Trump is moving towards attacking Cuba just to have a win. They can't get a win. The US has been defeated in a way
that it has not since since uh since I can remember. I mean the Vietnam war was a defeat. It
was a real psychological defeat for US empire and the US working class suffered enormously of course. It was terrible
for the American population. I remember moving to Washington DC as a as a boy in the mid 80s um to a majority black
neighborhood and seeing guys strung out on heroin in uh their BDUs from Vietnam all over the place.
That that generation was still being like killed off with heroin and then the crack epidemic came and cleaned it all up. Um but the US economy didn't suffer.
The global economy didn't suffer in the same way. the Iran war, it can't be contained in the same way these other wars were were contained. It's it's
something that the US hasn't experienced, especially in the postworld war II era. Um it's a much I think it's
a much deeper blow to US global hegemony than Vietnam was uh and certainly more than the uh second Gulf War which was
another defeat for the US wasn't economically contained and you know the US elite extract extracted a lot of
a lot of benefit Hallebertton stock for example.
Um so unfortunately the Lebanese population is suffering massively. Uh, I
saw Aaron Mate was around somewhere. Um, maybe is finished with his last interview, which I hope no one watched because you were watching the Greyzone.
Um, as charismatic and brilliant as Aaron is, but you know, if he wants to jump back in, otherwise we can move on.
We're also hoping for um, another special surprise guest. I don't know if they'll materialize any minute. Um,
we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants today. Um, hoping they can join now.
Yeah, here's Well, here's Aaron. Uh, Wyatt. Uh, yeah, we're going to move on to some other segments, but is there
anything else you want to add or um highlight?
Well, uh I I guess um I would just say stay tuned
and keep um keep watching this space. I plan on releasing some hopefully pretty
impactful reports in the next coming days. Um hopefully we'll be able to travel to the south and witness this
Israeli destruction campaign firsthand and then hopefully speak to some of its survivors.
And um yeah, just uh stay tuned to the Greyzone for sure. Uh there's some, you know, some other elements that I
included in the document that I think um you might find particularly interesting.
Uh there's a video of u of James Zagby talking about his meetings with the senior Biden administration officials
that uh you and Aaron may want to discuss because it's so revealing. It's just it tells you everything you need to
know about the origins of the Gaza genocide, the Democrats repeated refusal to intervene. Um and then they're
ultimately they're cowardice. Uh they it's it's like they're they're greenlighting this genocide and they won't even look you in the eye while
they're doing it. Um unlike unlike Trump and Netanyahu are kind of gleeful about it and accuse people of who who
object to their actions. You know, Trump accuses them of being a Palestinian as though that's an insult.
Um they feign uh concern for its victims uh and then you know press the genocide button
anyway. Yeah, that's why it was so satisfying to finally confront Blinkin.
It would much more satisfying than it would be to confront Rubio. Uh we're going to be hearing from someone who actually has confronted and challenged
Rubio and uh is being targeted in many ways for that in a second. Uh and we'll be joined by Aaron Mate. But Wyatt Reed,
uh you're our eyes and ears on the ground in Lebanon. Uh really value the work you're doing and
definitely stay safe out there. We're going to be um hearing a lot from you and you know highlighting your dispatches in the next few days. So So stay safe.
Do my best. Thanks, Max. All right. Peace, Wyatt.
All right. So, we have Aaron Mate here and a guest coming in really quickly that we managed to uh who managed to
become available for a a quick update on a situation we've been following.
Aaron's been following. Um, many of you have been following, but Aaron, uh, how was your last interview with, uh, Mario Nefal, which I hope no one watched.
I'm confident that nobody watched it. Don't worry.
Great. Uh, well, you know, you can watch it after. Yeah. After we're done. Yeah.
I the exact same things I'll say here, just in a different YouTube page. Yeah.
Uh, yeah. I I was did an interview with Judge Npalitano yesterday way earlier than I would have wanted to and he led
the interview with a ad for Lear Gold and I was simultaneously streaming it to our channel at the Greyzone. So I went
into the editor to remove the Lear Gold ad and I accidentally removed everything around the Lear Gold ad. So we have
nothing but Lear Capital or Lear Gold as my Judge Npalitano appearance on the gray zone. Um, I just made that private.
That's awesome. That's awesome.
That's great. I hope somebody screen grabbed that. Send that to me, anybody.
And gold is like going the the price keeps going down after it was up. So, yeah.
Well, listen. I know our guest is is very busy and I'm very happy she's here.
So, yeah, we should bring her in the So, quick intro. This guest is being targeted by the Trump administration for bringing aid to Cuba, for trying to save
lives, and really for telling the truth on Capitol Hill about the Gaza genocide, about what the war machine is doing.
This is a uh disgustingly cynical and sloppy political prosecution of one of
the most courageous Americans who's also a brilliant analyst and we want to, you know, get her take on the Cuba
situation. Medadia Benjamin from Code Pink. Welcome to the Grey Zone.
Hey, great to be on with two of my favorite guys.
All right. It's an honor. Um, yeah, I know that your your time is short.
You're busy. Um, tell us are have you have we the the news was
that you and Code Pink were subpoenaed along with podcaster Hassan [ __ ] for
violating OFAC sanctions in Cuba. Can you tell us the truth about what's actually happening there?
Yeah, we heard it from Fox News and uh I thought subpoena. Wow, that sounds really scary. And I was looking outside
my window, going outside, peeking around, thinking, is somebody going to be there to serve me with a subpoena?
And nothing came. Nothing came. And then a couple of days later, uh Jodie Evans was looking in her spam email box for
something else. And lo and behold, she found a letter from the Treasury Department. You know, you'd think that if they were really serious, they would
at least send it certified, but they sent an email and it was a c it's not a a subpoena. It's a request for
information. Uh, but it still is a pain in the neck. It means we have to get lawyers. It means we have to put a lot
of time and energy because they're asking like 12 different categories of questions. You know, when did you go to the bathroom? from when you were in
Cuba, uh, everything you did, every hour of the day that you were there, and not just you, I guess everybody. And there were 170 people. So, I don't know. Um,
some ridiculous questions. They want to know everything that we brought to Cuba.
Um, all the transportation that we used to get there and when we were in Cuba, you know, all kinds of ridiculous things. So, it's obviously an
intimidation tactic and we take it seriously, but it certainly doesn't stop us from doing the work we have to do,
which is oppose what is really an unconscionable criminal policy that is literally killing babies, which we've
seen um from the doubling of the infant mortality rate.
Midia, one of the main talking points against you was that you guys stayed in a hotel that was supposedly off limits to Americans. I I think I saw exchange
between you and Senator Rick Scott where he tried to bring this up with you. Can you clear that one up?
Yeah, that's so crazy because, you know, while when we were planning the trip, we didn't want to abide by these US regulations because there were lovely
hotels we wanted to stay in that were modest, that were inexpensive. But if you look at the government US government
list of prohibited hotels, there's a whole slew of them and there's only a handful that you can use. And in fact,
when we realized that we might not have transportation because the lack of gasoline, uh we had to pick one that was right in the middle of the city. And
that's one we picked. Uh it has to be one that's owned by a foreign company and in this case is Spanish. Although I
might say that more recently, the US has put the screws on all of these companies, foreign companies that are
working in Cuba, now it looks like even those Spanish and other foreignowned uh hotels, they're going to have to
disinvest themselves of their Cuban holdings. So, we stayed in the US uh
approved hotel and um now it seems like the poor Spanish are going to lose their their money on that one because of secondary sanctions.
Because of secondary sanctions and you know, uh Max and Aaron, you know how ironic it is that Marco Rubio says, you know, we've got to have private
enterprise in Cuba. Well, when we saw a lot of private enterprise in Cuba was during the Obama years when they started easing some of these sanctions. And the
other thing is that the pressure the US, the the Trump administration is putting on Cuba right now is really harming all
of these businesses, whether they're foreign businesses that were invested in Cuba. I mean there's one company that
for 32 years Canadian private mining company had been mining uh the nickel
and cobalt in Cuba the Sheret International and now because of these uh increased sanctions that just came
out about a week ago they announced that they have to be leaving. So you know so much for promoting foreign enterprise in Cuba.
Yeah. I mean Cuba has been open since the since 1989. and it's just not in the way the US wants and it's the US that's
seeking to close it off and I think you know since we got into this discussion it seems like the US strategy is to only
allow an opening within this private sector which starts with these kind of mipimes and now Marco Rubio is trying to
ram down a hundred million dollars of so-called aid that can only be distributed by faith-based NOS and
pumped into the private sector. Isn't that kind of the strategy here? is to sort of overwhelm Cuba with privatization.
Yes. But even then, the strategy is hurting the private sector. Uh it's really impossible. If if you're a owner
of a business and your child gets sick and you have to go to the hospital, these are governmentowned hospitals and they don't have medicines. So, uh, you
can't be promoting the private sector while you are draining Cuba of electricity, of fuel, of, uh, pumped
water because the water is not getting where it's going, the elevators not working. You know, uh, nothing is working when you have this kind of
medieval siege and, uh, that includes private businesses.
Media, you've been going to Cuba for a very long time. How does what you most recently saw compare to, you know, what you know of Cuba from the past?
I've never seen anything like this.
We've been going to Cuba now in the last two years a lot and every time we go, it gets worse and worse. People are more
and more miserable. Uh they are they really don't know where this is leading and there's a sense of despair and
hopelessness which is precisely what the policy is aimed at doing. So, uh, my heart goes out to the Cuban people as it gets hotter in the summer and it gets
very unbearably hot. Um, forget about air conditioning. They don't have fans already. I have friends who say that their kids are having a hard time
sleeping at night. And again, this is policy. It's so that Cubans will come out on the street and they're sweating
and they're hot and they haven't slept and they're angry and they're saying this has to end. And the only way they can see it ending is some kind of US
invasion, some kind of takeover. Um, not that that's what a lot of the people I talked to want. They just want to see some easing. They want to see a letup.
They want to see Cuba be left alone. And this uh naval blockade, you know, there was a Russian uh the the only tanker
that has reached Cuba in the last few months has been one Russian tanker, but that was used up in two weeks. There's
another tanker that was on its way and has suddenly turned around. So even that hope for Cuba uh has been dashed. There are other countries that are helping.
The Chinese are helping sending rice. They're also helping with solar panels.
Uh there's some shipments coming in from Mexico, uh from Spain, but and all of our solidarity groups keep sending
materials down, but it's a drop in the bucket. What Cuba needs is to be able to import oil. They need to be part of the
international financial system so they can trade like anyone else. They need to lift the sanctions and those sanctions are unfortunately codified. And that
happened after the shooting down of the uh brothers to the rescue plane that they have just indicted Raul Castro for.
After that, Congress came in and codified the sanctions. So, it's going to be a long slog to get these lifted, but that's what the Cubans need right now.
Uh how serious do you think the threats of an invasion are? Politico has a piece up. You the US has the Pentagon puts
building blocks in place for Cuba invasion. The Navy's presence in the Caribbean has not reduced despite the Iran war. I think this is happening because of the Iran war, because of the
failure of Trump to win in Iran, to score any military victory, to achieve any objective. Actually, it was a massive defeat and he needs a quick win.
Do you think it's possible that the US will stage some sort of kinetic action against Cuba along the lines of Venezuela or even more aggressive?
I think there are people in the administration who understand that this would not be a quick win. That there are too many people of after all these years who still support the Cuban government.
Of course, there's a lot of people who don't, but there are still a lot of people who do and uh that there's no Deli Rodriguez who just put into power
taking out one person. Um, this is a a government that has a lot of layers to it and uh it might be that there are I
mean certainly there are plans in place for an invasion. I heard that Trump said he didn't want troops on the ground more than . Uh but I've also heard
that they really want the slow bleed. Uh that they want to uh wait this out that they know the summer is going to be very
difficult. uh and they're thinking that, you know, this could fall by itself um if they just play their cards right.
They say they have even more possible sanctions. It's hard to even think of what else they could possibly sanction because they've sanctioned so much.
Yeah.
But, you know, I I think that there might be some preference to just uh letting waiting this out.
Yeah.
and and allowing many people to possibly die excess deaths. Uh I was visiting
with a friend, a mutual friend who went on a solidarity mission to deliver aid and said that while he was out in the
countryside, he got an like an abscess in his tooth or in his gums and went in for an operation. Of course, you know,
you get first rate medical care in Cuba, but there's no anesthetic. So he did the operation without anesthetic and suffered the most intense pain he'd ever
experienced. And that's what the average Cuban is going through right now.
Yeah. It's not a question, Max, of whether people uh will die. They are dying because of this. I mean, I mentioned the doubling of the infant
mortality rate. You know, Cuba is a country that had a lower infant mortality rate than the US, than western
rich countries. And yet the fact that that is doubling now is because of these sanctions. And I know people who can't
get their cancer medicines, who can't get the diabetes treatment they they need. There are supposedly 60,000 people
who can't get operations right now and many of them children. So uh the the sanctions are not an alternative to war.
They are a kind of warfare and they are killing people right now. And people should be so upset about this policy.
They should be speaking out uh pushing their members of Congress to vote for the war powers resolutions that are coming up in both the House and the
Senate. One coming up this week, the one uh other one probably the next week. U so we need to speak out and say this is
unconscionable. We don't want to keep killing uh babies and we don't want groups like ours who took primarily
medicines and medical equipments to the pediatric hospitals to be uh harassed, intimidated, and possibly sanctioned uh
with very severe sanctions because we are trying to save lives.
And uh last question unless Aaron wants to ask or add anything which is you know why do you why do you think what's the real reason that the Trump
administration is targeting Code Pink Hassan [ __ ] and the and others that it plans to target uh with these kind of uh
demands for information and borderline subpoenas. My theory is you know Cuba was a convenient opening for them but it's really about Israel.
You know, I think it's about Cuba because these Cubanameans in Miami have been pushing this for decades. And yes,
uh, some of them have connections to Israel and many of them are sympathetic towards Israel and take money from Apac, but really they have their own issue
which is people like Mariel Vera Salasad, like Carlos Himenez, like Diaz Bolard, uh, and of course Marco Rubio.
their entire careers, especially the members of Congress, have been built around trying to overthrow the government in Cuba. And they've been
going after us constantly and pushing the Treasury Department. They've been pushing the uh the um uh different areas
of government, the State Department to be investigating us constantly. So I think that um you know if you look at
what uh how obsessed these people are and they have a strong lobby and there one is a another connection to Israel
which is they learned from the Apac lobby. Yeah, they're a smaller group of people. They don't have as much money, but they are well organized. And because
the opposition like us um are not paid for by the Chinese Communist Party, contrary to allegations, uh the groups
supporting uh uh Cuba's right to sovereignty do not have a lot of money and are not well organized. Um then they
hold the the sway. The other thing to recognize is that it's our tax dollars, millions of them, year after year after
year that have been going to these groups in Miami to do everything from uh broadcasting uh radio and TV Marty that
are blocked from getting into Cuba, but the money has kept going year after year. uh to actually h going around the
world and trying to find disgruntled doctors, Cuban doctors working overseas who would tell how bad the Cuban
government is. So, um that is a another connection. Just like we give a lot of money to Israel, uh we give a lot of money to these Cuba groups in Miami.
Indeed. Uh, one of the reasons I think you know they started getting this slush fund was after the Bay of Pigs there was
a fear of blowback that they would actually carry out terrorist attacks inside the US unless they were given something to do uh and focused back on
Cuba. Uh, very extreme element, dangerous element and uh and carried out extremist and violent
acts in Cuba from the Bay of Pigs on. In fact, Joseé Basulto from Brothers to the Rescue was act part of Bay of Pigs and
involved in violent activities ever since. And I remember being in Cuba when they blew up a hotel and killed an Italian tourist.
They placed a bomb in the trash can in the hotel right in the lobby.
And of course, there's the airliner that they blew up. Kubana 455.
Exactly. Uh killing 733 people including the entire Cuban fencing team. And um
the people responsible for that uh live their life out very comfortably in Miami. Um Possal Karles is one of them.
We once did an action where uh it was part of the war on terror and we said there's a terrorist living in Miami. We went to the FBI office in Miami and we
said you got to you know you got to do something. There's a terrorist living here. We gave the address.

PART 3 OF 3

Of course the FBI didn't do anything. So we went to
his house and we also then did a um a a a protest outside of Versailles, the
restaurant where the right-wing Cubanameans congregate. Uh and almost and we did get attacked uh and um we
have been uh we had been complaining for years about these terrorists living in Miami. But of course they are our terrorists. Quote our terrorists meaning
the US government terrorists. In fact, Joseé Basulto even said he was trained as a terrorist in the United States. And in those overflights he was doing over
Cuba, he said, "We want confrontation." Uh the US uh government people said, "One of these days, the Cubans are going
to shoot those planes down." And of course, that happened. that it it Yep. A warning was given to the FAA uh right
before it took place and a month before by the Clinton administration's top Cuba hand. Uh Luis Pada Curles died in his
home in his bed in Miami. Uh his partner in crime who bombed the Cuban airliner 455 Orlando Bosch uh was honored in
Miami with Orlando Bosch day. So, as you said, there are terrorists. uh you're our freedom fighter and you're being targeted for uh the righteous work
you're doing to save lives and to um intervene against the war machine. So we
uh thank you for joining us at the gray zone and hope uh you know I just want to make sure everyone's aware of this so
they can support you. How can people best uh support Code Pink as you're being targeted by the Trump Mafia and the Gusano Industrial Complex of Miami?
Uh keep donating to our humanitarian aid for Cuba site which is on our website.
Uh keep joining us on trips to Cuba, which we will keep doing. We think it's very important that people keep going.
We just had a group that came down back a couple of days ago and people came back and said, "These are the nicest people I ever met in my life. Why are we doing this to them?" Yeah.
So, keep up the work and also, as I said, please call your members of Congress and tell them to vote for the War Powers Resolution to stop an
invasion and the naval blockade that is happening right now.
All right. Well, media Benjamin from Code Pink, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Great to be on with you. Byebye. Great to see you.
So, yeah, Aaron, uh, why why do you think Hassan [ __ ] is being targeted?
And uh I mean well and and are the are you know he's close to a lot closer to the Democrats than we are.
Why are they speaking up for him? Do you think he's adequately being defended?
Are the Democrats defending Hassan [ __ ] Uh yeah like like like the Bernierats.
Uh Ro Khan I think has spoken out in his defense. But yeah, no they the Democratic establishment a lot of them see him as the enemy because he's he's
trying to push the party in a progressive direction and he's doing things like going to Cuba. So yeah, I mean I think this just comes down to evil. Like the, you know, these people,
whether it's regime change in Cuba or genocide in Palestine, they're on the side of evil and they're trying to silence people who are pushing back in
their own ways. And Hassan [ __ ] has grown more influential. Like Code Pink's on the front lines. Like they're the ones directly challenging members of Congress more than anybody else. So they
have a target on their back. And Assan [ __ ] is attracting a lot of young people and so people in power see him as a threat. So recently, I think Congress voted to censure him and Candace Owens.
Yeah.
Like that's how they like that's what they think is a good use of their time, energy is to censor um online
personalities and and uh but so yeah um and the fact this was fed to Fox News
just shows that Fox is just a part of a disinformation campaign.
Well, there the you know their reporter Ashra Nomani who is this fake progressive Muslim feminist who walks
around with an IDF t-shirt in DC is a fed. I mean, she's basically her job is to roll out these prosecutions to
justify them or or justify the targeting of anti-war groups in Fox News before they come down. And I think the po
there's a point of contact in the NSC named Sean Chennowith who's doing this whole uh foreign disinformation operations like bot, you know, bots are
backing up Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson is being uh amplified by Iran.
You know, that whole uh counter disinformation hoax.
Well, we can thank Liberals for that one because that Yeah, that started during the Biden era um you know with Russia gate.
Yeah. But there's also um Sebastian Gorka, who's the new counterterrorism chief at DNI, replacing Joe Kent, who is
basically an Israeli asset. I mean, he was a personality on Salem Media, which is now registered as a foreign agent of
Israel. And he's declaring that the entire left, like leftist anti-war activists, are terrorists under this
national security memorandum from the DHS. I don't know what they can do with that, but they're clearly just trying to
crack down on disscent as they ship more 2,000lb bombs to Israel that are
destined to make people upset because, you know, most people don't like seeing entire families being slaughtered in their home.
You know, it just came out from Responsible Statecraft that uh Salem Media got $13 million
Yeah. from the Israeli government which it then handed out to Republican firms uh and and allies. $13 million. Like
imagine if they found even a fraction of that coming from Russia during the Russia gate era.
Yeah. Y you know um 13 million but it comes from Israel. So everyone's like yeah that's normal. We just totally normalized this
foreign government funding uh media networks and and pundits and that's totally fine. That's a form of foreign meddling, foreign influence. It's completely acceptable.
Who is uh who are some Salem media personalities that we might recognize who are on who are part of a foreign agent for Israel whose um director of
strategy is registered as a foreign agent for Israel and and again they're run by Brad Parcal who was the former Trump campaign
manager and some of the person I mean they include Scott Jennings right of CNN.
Yep. Yep. So CNN's top conservative pundit is basically a foreign agent for Israel.
Yeah.
Here here it is. Actually, it's an Intercept piece since the Intercept seems to be less Omidraresque now.
They're actually doing some real reporting.
Ex-Trump campaign chief funneled millions of Israeli government money to his longtime allies companies. Um, one
of them being Salem Media, which which is where Sebastian Gorka was. I mean, it's it's all like just naked out and
out uh foreign agent influence peddling by Israel. It's right
in your face. They've captured almost all of MAGA. Like all of MAGA's main personalities are on Salem Media. And then they're going after Code Pink and
claiming that they're sponsored by the Communist Party of China. And uh it's not just like a thin reed that is their
source of evidence. There really isn't a they they really don't have any evidence. So they're demanding they're requesting information. It's a fishing expedition.
Um Hassan [ __ ] you know, I I don't watch him. I I really am not that familiar with him. I
don't understand the sensation around him except that he's like someone who accuses Israel of genocide and uh you
know posts photos of himself reading Lenin on trains who has a connection to the Democrats. So you know the the the
centrist Democrats and Republicans want to hang him like an albatross around the progressive caucus's neck. Um as if that will actually work.
That seems to be my sense.
I mean, Max, like, you're not his intended audience. He's on he's on Twitch, which is a platform for video game streamers, right? But look, I I
think he's very effective. Like, he's very articulate, like he knows his stuff. He's trying to Oh, yeah. You were on stage with him at uh Web Summit.
I was on uh Or my dad was Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, I mean, I like like I He's um I see why they want to go after him. He's very
effective. uh is good at it and he he is, you know, educating more young people about the reality of Israel,
which is a good thing. I mean, he he has more faith, I think, in maybe the Democratic party than I might, but whatever, you know. Um I get why they're
going after him because uh he's popular and you just can't tolerate dissenting voices that are challenging Israel um
and doing things like like uh going to Cuba.
Yeah. And I saw Nick Fuentes call for him to be jailed. Um, I didn't really understand the rationale
there. Um, but uh, you know, would we support President Rahm Emanuel jailing Nick Fuentes?
Probably not. No. No. Yeah. No. Yeah.
Not because uh, you know, out of out of love and solidarity, you know, just there's there's something called principles in the Constitution.
So, it's it's it's it's it's forcing out a lot. It's it can the mask lifting continues and it really comes down to
principles and not whether you agree with someone or think they dress well uh
or are obnoxious. I think the the the line is
should people be jailed for upsetting the Israeli occupied government in the White House or not? That's pretty much the line here.
Moving on. I mean, Trump, I want to cover Iran today. We haven't really covered that. Do Do you want to discuss
that? Trump is suggesting there's some kind of deal in the works.
I mean, how long are we going to go on with this for where Trump says is he's about to finalize a deal, everything's been settled, and then Iran tells the
truth and says, "No, actually, things are not settled." So, yeah, this is the latest is we're broadcasting. Trump was heading into some White House meeting
saying he's going to decide whether or not to approve a peace deal with Iran.
It strikes me that basically there's a general understanding that could extend a ceasefire that will involve a partial reopening of the state of Hormuz and
maybe some of Iran's stolen assets will get returned a fraction of the money that the US has stolen from Iran. Maybe
or maybe some sanctions will be lifted as a token gesture. But that's what strikes me. Uh if there is any agreement to be made, it's basically another temporary one to extend the ceasefire.
The idea that like Trump and Iran have worked out the nuclear file. I mean like no like that requires a lot of work. It requires people who know what they're
talking about. Not Steve Wickoff, Jared Kushner, and the guy they recently poached from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Israeli front group. Yeah. Nick Stewart.
Nick Stewart. So uh but uh it's just I think Trump continues to stall because he can't make a decision. He's
surrounded by war hawks. Uh but he knows that his military option um is lost, that there is no military solution. He
doesn't have the cards as he told Zilinsky. Yeah.
And he's just trying to figure out a way to I think delay an acceptance of defeat and he's been talking this week about the Abraham Accords. All of a sudden he
wants the remaining Gulf states that haven't joined it to jump on board.
The whole point of the Abraham Accords is to sideline Palestinians, right? And especially after Trump put the region in peril with this aprovoked
war of aggression against Iran, he thinks they're going to turn around and reward him by signing on to the sellout agreement. Like so he's all over the place.
Rinse and repeat.
Yeah. I I want to get to Abraham Accords in in a second, but just to cover Trump's message today on Truth Social,
um you know, he's apparently according to some Iranian sources, um and this has come out in Alazer as
well, that this comment, this this this post on Truth Social was actually part of the ongoing agreements that he's
supposedly making with Iran that he has to announce this before moving forward in order to put it on the record as if anyone can trust Trump. Um, and he says
that Iran must agree they will never have a nuclear weapon or bomb and that the straight of Hormuz must be immediately opened and that he's
basically pledging that it will soon be open. Say hello to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite president. Um, the ships caught in the straight will be coming out.
He's, you know, and and uh everyone can start heading home. And then he says the nuclear dust which you know is his
reference to the bombed highlyenriched uranium bombed by you know an operation midnight
hammer in Isvahan. uh that it will be unearthed by the US in coordination with
he he calls it the Islamic Republic of Iran which really does suggest he was doing this under some kind of negotiating pressure plus the IAEA and
then destroyed which means it won't necessarily come out to the United States to the United States which was the initial proposal.
I question whether the IAEA will or should be allowed in there given that they, you know, were furnished names of scientists, that Raphael Gi, the
secretary general's phone was hacked by the Mossad, and that he's proven to be kind of a tool of the West, and that all these scientists got assassinated by
Israel. I question whether this is going to go down the same way. No money will be exchanged. Iran has been demanding money upfront uh sanctions relief and
reparations and uh you know but he's he's suggesting there's some deal in the works uh which is obviously upsetting the foundation for the destruction of democracy.
Yeah. Well again the money that Iran wants is simply its own money that the US has stolen for decades.
In fact a lot of it right comes from when the sha was in power and he was buying all the US weaponry he wanted. So then when the sha was overthrown, the US
simply just kept the money rather than returning it to Iran. Uh so it's stolen money that Iran wants back along with other assets been frozen around the
world as US can do because it controls the financial system. And I mean the main question for me is is Trump and also some of that money is to um go
to like um US journalists who are like hiking into Iran and were held prisoner.
Shane Bower being one of them who got something like $300 million of stolen Iranian assets and then and then campaign after they
get released campaign for regime change against one of Iran's top allies.
Yeah. In Syria. Um yeah, I I forgot about that guy. Um then um stolen money that could have been used
to provide social programs in Iran that's now being used to um allow a Bay
Area failed journalist to just basically live lavishly.
It's a nice life. It's a nice life. Good for him. Um, so, uh, but my question is for Trump, uh, is he going to be willing
to, uh, stand up to Netanyahu and tell him to stop his war of aggression in Lebanon? Because that's what Iran is
demanding. Iran insists on linking any ceasefire to Lebanon.
And will Trump actually follow through on that? Can he actually tell Netanyahu to knock it off?
I think if he wanted to, he could. The question is, does he have the fortitude?
uh does he is he willing to anger Miriam Adlesen and Lindsey Graham and all those war hawks and Israel firsters around him? That's to me what this comes down
to. Uh remember a few weeks or about a month ago he said that Israel's forbidden from bombing Lebanon anymore. Like like what happened to that one?
Because Israel's been bombing Lebanon pretty much every single day since Trump issued that pronouncement. So will he be willing to ultimately follow through on
that? I think that's the question. And also on Iran, are they now really going to agree to not have a nuclear weapon at this point after all they've been through? Yeah, exactly.
You know, um, if I were in their shoes, I I I don't know what I would do. I think they're in a tough position. Um, if they renounce a
nuclear weapon permanently forever, they're making themselves vulnerable to two powers that have attacked them repeatedly and have nuclear weapons. Uh
but also let's say they decided to go for a nuclear weapon, they also would be inviting another USIsraeli attack uh including with nuclear weapons.
And here's here's the threat of a a US attack uh after the US completely failed on every level militarily.
The adversaries know what's coming. And that's when this is our secretary of war up and meet the fury of the American
military or back down and you create a whole bunch of options for America and the president with what he wants. You see how they're holding their arms?
are being told to do that because if they have an Audi belly button, they don't want the PR disaster of what Trump experienced in the White House where
there was this guy with a huge gut and a gigantic Audi like his umbilical cord was was like sliced with pliers at his
birth and so they're being told to stand like that and also to cover up their guts. They're like some of them aren't in very good shape, but they're doing early morning training with Pete Hegath.
And this is like, you know, these are like the frontline fighting forces that are going to seize Car Island on behalf of the American people. So, right now,
hey, Iran has a choice. Meet at the table with the president and give up their nuclear program.
Look at the guy filming. Like, where do they come from? Uh Iran has a choice.
Give give up your nuclear program. And as the president said, I'm lost on time. Two days ago now in the cabinet meeting.
I'm sitting right next to him. He looks in the camera and says, "Well, Iran can either do it the right way with a deal
across the table or they can deal with my guy on the left." That happened to be me. It's not me. It's you guys.
It's what you're ready to do. It's what Yeah. Well, that doesn't look very intimidating to me. I love his this is war shirt and his crusader tattoo is
like I'm sure Iran is shake Iran the IGC is shaking in their boots right now.
Maybe Pete Hexath also trying to cover himself for a future war crimes trial, you know, by saying it's not me, it's you guys. So trying to pass off responsibility for war crimes to these
poor soldiers under under his watch. But yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't I don't actually know if he even saw combat. He
was he was assigned to a kind of like desk job, reassigned after his convoy was supposedly attacked, but there's no documentation of that attack. He was a
mid-level National Guard officer. Um, yeah, it's you guys. It's not me, it's you guys. It's not uh Steven Fineberg,
my assistant at the Pentagon, who runs everything. It's you guys.
And it's them who will die in the war that him and Trump launch. And uh remember when Trump showed up at uh the
military base where the where the bodies of dead soldiers uh come back to? He showed up wearing like a a baseball cap. Yeah.
And didn't look like he wanted to be there. Uh yeah. So I mean Pakath is right. It's it's not him bearing the brunt of the war, you know, risking his
life for it. It's it's them and of course many more people inside of Iran who uh on top of all the all the many that they've already killed.
Yeah, I mean he had to wear that hat to it was a windy day and he had to keep in his weird yellow grafted conchk pompador
from flying in the wind and uh like he has a kind of has a conchk like in the
40s and uh it was at the same time a very serious sign of disrespect.
Uh I mean there were rumors that a US jet was taken down um near Bucher where
they're doing a lot of overflights yesterday. US military denies it. Uh some an MQ9 drone a Triton drone was taken down over Yemen by Ye uh Ansarah.
US lost another drone two days ago. I mean, this is going to continue happening, but if they bring, you know, ground troops in,
it's not it's going to be a political catastrophe. And Aaron, you mentioned, you know, this this demand by Trump for Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States
to sign on with the Epstein Accords or the Abraham Accords as they're formerly known. And this would invalidate in
doing so it would invalidate I think the signature diplomatic initiative of the
um Saudi monarchy. I think this was under Abdul Aziz in 2002. The Arab Arab
peace initiative which is an initiative for a Palestinian state. They do have a domestic population to answer to that
supports the Palestinians. NBS does the crown prince. So joining the Abraham
Accords would mean sort of invalidating years of Saudi diplomacy and upsetting a local population that you know the UAE
doesn't have to contend with. I think this is Jared Kushner's idea. this was the FDD's idea like okay if you're going
to do a deal do this and it's a way of kind of like gumming up the works and also it is a message to the Gulf states who are not
the UAE which has already just completely cast its lot with Israel and the US and especially Trump
do this or we will start the war again and you will be destroyed by Iran so we will actually be destroying you by proxy through Iran because we're going to be
launching attacks from your territory in Iran has already told you what it's going to do. Yeah.
The US is actually tacitly threatening Saudi Arabia with destruction. And at the same time, it is openly threatening its oldest ally in the region in Oman.
The US has been an ally of Oman for 200 years with destruction. It's going to be open to everybody.
It's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. Watch over it.
We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to control it. Nobody's going to
control international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else.
So, we'll have to blow them up. They understand that. They'll be fine.
No, we'll blow up Oman if they don't behave like everyone else. Oman has been overseeing all the diplomacy around Iran. They tried to prevent this war
through diplomacy and they actually disclosed that Witoff and Kushner misled the public about what was taking
place in the negotiations and use negotiations as cover for war. So maybe Trump can't forgive them, but Oman is
supposed to be part of the maintenance of the Strait of Hormuz because it's in their waters and a large and the straight of Hormuz is in Iranian waters.
That's not international waters. I mean, at one point the straight of Hormuz is like 23 miles wide. That's not
international waters. This is just a lie.
Yeah. And Aman said even in the aftermath of Trump's threats that they're going to work with Iran. So, they're not accepting his threats to blow them up.
And the message to the reason region to to the Saudis to to everyone is the US will have you destroyed or will destroy
you directly unless you start to actually behave like a member of the region. and a member of the Arab world
and the Muslim world and deal with Iran as a partner instead of an enemy
and using the US uh for protection to protect your oil fields. Like it's the there's no the protection racket is over. Yeah.
And the Trump administration has blown that up.
The fundamental dividing line in the region in terms of what causes conflict is those who sell out the Palestinians
and those who don't. And because Iran hasn't sold out the Palestinians, because Hezbollah hasn't, um, they were targeted for regime change and targeted
for aggression. And now Trump is saying to his Gulf allies, join the sellouts or else you'll be destroyed. Yeah,
but uh it's just, you know, it's I mean it's not gonna I mean I don't see Saudi Arabia or especially Qatar like why
would they especially reward Trump after he did so much damage to them with this war of aggression. Yeah.
It's like the worst timing possible if you're trying to get someone to sell the Palestinians. This is the worst timing possible after Trump with Netanyahu launching a war of aggression that caused major damage to the whole region.
I mean, Qatar has suffered major damage uh after Iran retaliated. So did Saudi Arabia. So So why would they I mean to
be why would they even in normal circumstances reward Trump, but especially now? It just speaks to his complete detachment from reality and colonial arrogance.
Well, speaking of detachment from reality, this is one of the leading Democrats in the House,
uh, echoing a message from other leading Democrats who are sponsored by the Israel lobby. I am concerned and
frustrated over again another potential deal, a negotiation for a negotiation where we're going to unfreeze Iranian
assets and give them billions of dollars to be able to control proxies again and
to rebuild their ballistic missile program, never mind their drone program, which is incredibly deadly. And they've been increasing their drone capability.
So this is deeply concerning and look I'm glad that Iran their capability militarily has been degraded. But if
what we get from this initial deal is just going back to where we were before where Iran did not control the straight
of Hormuz and what has been accomplished.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, uh, South Florida supporter of regime change in Cuba, Venezuela, elsewhere, and, uh, heavily sponsored by the Israel lobby.
And she's now actually going to run in a black majority district, one of the last black majority districts in Florida, uh,
since the Republicans have uh, gutted the Voting Rights Act and eliminating eliminated black representation south of
the Mason Dixon line. she's gonna run in that district. Um, I don't know if anyone told her that, uh, Jerry Curl is no longer in fashion in the community.
Uh, well, that's why I mean, change your look up a little bit, but it's called Jerry Mandering, not Jerry Curl.
Or or you could say it's Jerry Curl mandering.
I'm surprised that I'm surprised that like actual Jew haters haven't seized on this and called it jewelry mandering.
Oh, they'll get there.
Yeah, they'll get there. Free tip from us. Um but yeah, uh there's too much to focus on with like revelations of like ritual child abuse
in Israel for them to focus on that. But but yeah, uh the Democrats are not exactly putting up opposition or or
supporting this deal. But Debbie Wasserman Schultz supported the Iran deal under Obama. So it's like she did really she did.
Huh. Okay. Well, because her talking points there were just basically Trump's talking points in opposing the nuclear deal. You know, why we gave him the money? Why aren't we talking about their
ballistic missile? I mean, that's what the Republican Chuck Schumer objection was because Chuck Schumer was a Democrat who also opposed the Iran nuclear deal.
So, she's joined the the Trump Chuck Schumer camp. I didn't realize that she supported the Iran deal. I'm very surprised by that.
After I saw that interview, I looked it up and I thought, "Oh, yeah. They're such cynical partisan bastards who
really believe in nothing. And it's not it's not just Israel. It's anything Trump does, even if he is, as we've
talked about again and again, even if he moves towards peace, which he no longer really does, they oppose it. Um, but
their natural tendency is towards conflict.
And, uh, I guess Obama was strong at that strong enough at that point to kind of whip the votes.
But I I I don't see much, you know, messaging. There's not enough messaging around this war and how it is just
utterly destroying the not just the global economy, but the economy in deep red districts, in Nebraska, for example, in Kansas, where fertilizer is needed.
Trump's base is being completely demoralized. Trump's approval rating is almost at a historical low.
Trump is at the same place at this point in his uh second term that Richard Nixon was in 1972
during the secret bombing when the secret bombing campaign of ca of Cambodia was revealed. That's where Donald Trump is.
Uh no other president in recent time has times has been this unpopular. And it's because the American public understands,
but the Democrats are like maybe there what what the the cynical play is let's keep the war going or
prevent a deal from opening the Straight of Hormuz because the um by destroying the economy, we're weakening Trump or keeping the economy weak.
the same way that Trump didn't uh and the Republicans blocked Biden from uh shutting down the US Mexico border
because they wanted the immigration crisis to be a major y uh point of contention when Trump ran again.
I have heard from people who work on Capitol Hill who are progressives that they think that's exactly what the Democratic strategy is. Let the war go
on and make Trump suffer the political consequences. Uh so that would make sense to me that that's what they're
doing. Make him own this war. Uh but at the same time, as we see from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, there is a big constituency in the Democratic Party leadership that supports this war of aggression.
Yeah.
Their Senate leader is Chuck Schumer, who openly bragged that his job is to get aid to Israel, who openly said that we can't have peace with the
Palestinians because they don't believe in the Torah. I mean, he's as Jewish supremist. He's as Israel first Jewish supremacist as anybody in Trump's camp.
So, u I mean, no, no wonder it's been pretty easy for Trump to continue this given the state of his opposition. And
yeah, I mean, as for why he would blow everything up, his whole political project up just for Israel. I I mean, he's so narcissistic, maybe he just
doesn't care. He's not running for office again, at least if he respects the rules. So, therefore, he just doesn't care. He doesn't care. He's not is he ideologically a Republican? No.
He's a guy who loves musicals and and just wants to like, you know, golf with his rich friends. And so maybe he's already looking ahead to that.
Yeah. And making his genius son even wealthier. Yes.
He's a genius because he can turn on and off his laptop.
Baron Trump. Uh you know, we saw Thomas Massie get defeated by basically Israel and its billionaire cutouts and that was
sort of within a red district, a referendum on Trump and where Fox boomers stand on that and the Iran war.
I guess they they support it. Yeah.
But there's a statewide race in Michigan which will be another kind of referendum and you have Abdul El Say who is u
you know running in a state with the the largest Arab-American population in the country who's ArabAmerican.
this cringe-worthy kind of neoliberal candidate, Mallerie McMororrow, who presents herself as just like an
ordinary Democrat who cares about ordinary things, but she won't stop. She refuses to stop taking money from Apac,
can't take a clear stand on the war. And then there's this other figure um what Haley Stevens
and this is her very attractive uh candidate reflecting the Democratic youthful base.
And in the United States Congress, I will continue to fight for the people
of Israel. I will continue to fight for Israel's existence.
Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel's future and I know that Israel will continue to exist for the Jewish people.
I love you all so very much. Happy happy Hanukkah. Thank you.
Israel comes to her in her dreams. By the way, she's not Jewish. Just if anyone wants to become more anti-Semitic after seeing that, you know, she and
Elise Steonic are not Jewish as far as I know, but Israel comes to her in her dreams and she's a Democrat. She's getting wrecked
in the polls. Uh Abdul Assai is winning handily in Michigan. So, you know, this
could be a positive sign on where things could go towards 2028. the Democrats are the only arena for contestation on the
Iran war at this point or on palis Israel Palestine and and I figure you know the the side that wants to sanction
Israel that wants to do a war powers resolution against the war on Iran and further wars that would want some kind
of lasting negotiation and deal with Iran will get stomped by the Democratic party leadership but there will at least be uh more substantial fight and figures
like Haley Stevens don't really seem to have a future in places like Michigan.
I just love that clip, so I wanted an excuse.
I'd never heard of her. That's uh that's some good comic relief. So, yeah, thanks for that.
Um I I want to talk about Venezuela. That's like the last thing I want to talk about. Anything else you want to cover?
Uh, Wyatt mentioned, since we're still on the topic of Democrats, Wyatt mentioned that clip of James Zaggby talking about I mean we
Yeah. Yeah. I I'll pull that up. That it was interesting reveal because these figures, you know, they're trying to they're making a comeback tour. Tony
Blinkin and uh and Jake Sullivan who was NSC director
basically running the Biden administration as Biden uh mind decayed
uh are are on a comeback tour and they want to come back into the party and take control over the foreign policy
apparatus once again. Um, this was Jim Zagby, longtime ArabAmerican activist
who's always kind of been had a had a a foothold within the Democratic Party. um which has made him kind of have a very
soft position on Palestine, but he had access to these figures and he reveals some very
like just absolutely disgusting interactions with Sullivan and Blinken if you want to during the the early stages of the Gaza genocide if you want to roll it.
Yeah. By the way, I bet a gray on trivia here. the the person you're speaking to. Yes.
She was the head of a group, people might remember this, called the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The group that called me the biggest spreader of disinformation on Syria. And
then when I asked for an example of even one one case of me spreading this information, they refused to provide and even change their complaints policy so they wouldn't have to respond to me. So
she was ahead of that group. And funny enough, I just learned recently um that and I missed this announcement, but the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which
again was like a NATO shady State Department funded, Bill Gates funded, they recently merged with another group uh the Alliance for Securing Democracy,
if you remember, the ones who did Hamilton 68, like so the group behind the Hamilton 68 bots were basically everything that the
establishment didn't like, they would tell you that a Russian bot was promoting it and the entire established media took that seriously. Yeah, they're testifying before Congress. So
anyway, they've merged with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. So congratulations to the Alliance for Security Democracy and another useless pro-worth think tank for joining forces.
And of course, who even pays attention to them anymore, but just some nostalgia for people. But yeah, so Jasmine Elgamal
was the one who branded you the biggest spreader of disinformation and she's seen here interviewing Jim Zagby and she
was like a former Pentagon hack like kind of like a civilian at the Pentagon and she was part of the program which brought us the uh genocide in Gaza but
now you know she is now a critic of this whole situation. Um, but that's sort of, you know, our own, you know, it's beside
the point of what we want to, yeah, just a side note show here.
Get invited to a meeting with Jake Sullivan. I get there and here we were talking about October 7th and the aftermath and there were Arab-American groups, Palestinian groups completely
not included. He spoke first and talked about the trauma being experienced by the Jewish community. And uh when he
finished, I said uh I understand that and I grew up with a mother who made me very sensitive to the plight of Jews
during World War II and the aftermath and know from Jewish friends how traumatized they were and it reminded them of the pgrams. It reminded them of the threat of Eastern European Jews. And
I said, "Let me tell you in my experience in the camps and survivors of the Nakba that is happening now with Palestinians, they're feeling that one more time they're going to be victimized
and expelled and they're under threat." I said, "We have to keep both in mind." And he didn't say anything. And then toward the end of the meeting, he started going like this with his hands
on his head. I was like, "What's what is he doing?" And he said, "I have to say something. I know you're going to get upset, but I have to say something." He said, "What you said about, you know, that we have to remember the
Palestinians." He said, "That's smack of what about Isism?" Like they're both equal. And uh he said, "That's unacceptable." I was like, he was so
angry that it startled me. Um wow.
And I said, I did not say, you know, this justifies that. I just said there are two peoples and we have to consider the the consequences to both. It was a
bad experience. Then I went to Blinken and the meeting with Blinken was weird because I remember saying to him um or somebody else said to him about the
number of civilian casualties and he said um it's intolerable. Absolutely intolerable. And I said we should push for a ceasefire. He said no that would
be intolerable. I said so there are two intolerables and you've chosen the one that will make more of the other intolerable happen. And he just nodded.
He did a lot of nodding. I don't know whether it was ideology, whether it was just out of being out of touch or in denial or or what. I had never dealt
with people more detached from the reality of what was taking place than these guys. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank and and this this is all backed up with their p by their public statements like that really reflects what Tony Blinkin would say in public
like the loss of every child is intolerable.
But we must not have a ceasefire because on October 7th, Hamas entered homes and mutilated people with chainsaws with
hockey masks on and sorry on them from meat hooks. Like it was like that he just lied openly before
Congress on October 31st. Watch Tony Blinkin's Senate testimony. He openly lies about atrocities on October 7th to oppose a ceasefire and then the loss of
every child with them. I'll tell you this. Take a look in my cold dead eyes. Don't you believe I care about life.
I dress my own children up as Vladimir Zalinsky for Halloween. I care about kids. He actually did that.
I know. I remember. Um, and Jake Sullivan, like human scarecrow, Jake Sullivan is much worse. And uh, now they're trying to reinsert themselves.
We can't let them come back. I mean, as horrible as Trump is, you know, we can't let that happen.
Hunter Biden's trying to um, have a comeback tour. I mean, that's how bad it is. But Hunter Biden, for all he did,
you know, him hitting the pipe with Marian and Barry at Archabald Strip Club, doesn't compare
to hitting homes of entire families in the Gaza Strip with GBU bombs, which is what Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken did again and again and again.
I think we've run the gamut on that region for today. Um, I just wanted to highlight
uh my latest report at the Greyzone which was has been corroborated by the Washington Post. I think I forced them
to come out with their piece a few hours after I dropped it um on who's really in charge in Karacus.
And I've learned a lot about what's going on there through this through this report which scooped the Washington Post and Reuters. And I provided a lot more detail on the corruption than they did.
They um got access to the figure I wrote about who would not speak to me who is the most important figure of the I would
say of the Trump administration on Latin America but is not in the Trump administration. So the person who's
really who really holds the keys to Caracus, Mauricio Clever Coron and that's his partner over his right
shoulder, Jessica Bedoya who helps him run his investment firm.
uh Laura Fund and is also a CIA agent who oversaw the um deportation or
abduction of Alex Saab, but is also not in the Trump administration per se.
They're there the person running the show, the Imperial Viceroy, who controls access to Deli Rodriguez, who has determined which
uh international firm advisory firm will advise Venezuela's
government on its $170 billion in sovereign debt, who has overseen every scheme in the
past relating to Venezuela, including the recognition of Juan Guaido as interim president, the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to SECOT, all the
sanctions on Venezuela, the sanctions on Cuba, who over who devised the kinetic operation to kidnap Nicholas Maduro and
Celia Flores. This guy, he's not in the Trump administration and so he's not accountable to anyone and he runs an
investment firm and has openly said that he aims to be the CubanAmerican Jared Kushner, which means if you want any
deal in Karacus, you have to go to him and he's going to take a cut and raise tons of capital for his investment firm.
And I have it on good authority from a former US official, a senior US official that he was raising capital for that
firm when he was in the Trump administration, which I think is illegal. But that's the way they roll.
That's what Caracus is about at this point for them for the Trump administration. It's just
about making money, plundering the carcass of the post Maduro pro state.
And in the middle of it all is Deli Rodriguez, someone I've, you know, interacted with in Caracus, interviewed,
and it uh is and she is in a very precarious situation.
The risk there is overcompliance.
She doing too much for the Trump administration.
The other risk is non-compliance will lead to a potential massacre.
What Deli Rodriguez has done by embracing these figures and I know she doesn't like Mauricio Clav Corone but
has to deal with him because he's sort of the mentor of Marco Rubio who was in the Senate when he was in the first Trump administration devising the entire
Latin American policy. He he knows where all the bodies are buried. um he knows how to move the paper.
Deli Rodriguez, if she doesn't comply, she will face more pressure for elections and they'll run someone like Maria Karina Machado. They'll they could
rig the election for all we know. that could suppress the Chavvista vote, ram her in there, or she could just win outright because of years and years of
sanctions grinding down and demoralizing the population and then she will enact a purge working with the US
uh working with the CIA which is reestablishing its base in Kacus of the Chavista leadership and more than Alex Sab will go to prison. So there's that
risk, not just prison killings, the purging of the collectivos, the ending of the kunas, the uh, you know, they
they could get rid of the cooperative farms and left-wing media stations that flourished under the Bolivarian
revolution. So there's a lot at risk there, but the risk of overcompliance is that the Democrats come into power and Deli Rodriguez is completely identified
with the Trump administration and its reign of corruption in Caracus.
where Donald Trump Jr., a source told me, is going down there trying to rustle up funds for his 1789 capital, which is just a pure channel for corruption.
Peter Teal has a new deal uh through a startup to reconnect Venezuela's central bank to the global economy, to the Swift
network. And uh the other backer of that fund is Pal Palmer Lucky from Anderil.
all the all these uh you know MAGA crypto scammers and AI lords are doing
everything they can to capitalize on the opening up of of Caracus and it and there's there's almost no
accountability. Where is all the money from the profits of Venezuelan oil exports going
supposedly to a city bank account in New York? There's some accounting firm that I don't know if it's what accounting
it's producing, but the two um firms in charge of getting the oil out physically and h with their fleet of ships and
taking it around the world, including to Israel, VTOL and Trafigora are two of the most corrupt trading houses on the planet.
And they have been given this deal by design because they're corrupt, because it's obscure.
They were fined hundreds of millions of dollars under the Biden administration by the Department of Justice's Foreign
Corrupt Practices Division. What's the first thing that the department the attorney general Pam Bondi does under
Trump? One of the first things get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Division of the Department of Justice.
Then they bring them in right after Maduro and Flores, Celia Flores, his wife, are kidnapped. And they're selling the oil on the international market. And
where's the money going? Is the money even going back to Venezuela? Some of it. I don't know. Trump said the money is going to pay for the Iran war. So,
it's his own personal slush fund. What we can conclude is it's just a very corrupt arrangement. Delsey Rodriguez
has taken on. And there are a lot of questions to ask about January 3rd, uh, when Maduro was kidnapped, why it took place.
Um, but I am going to just continue reporting the facts as they come in. And I know I got it right here. I don't
think anyone can dispute anything in my report. We're going to have more and more reports coming out corroborating
what I wrote. And I'm learning more and more about the deportation of Alex Saab.
Um, there's more coming out about that.
And I'm getting, you know, I have explain that quickly. Let's explain because people people who don't know who that is. He was first kidnapped under
the Trump administration because he was helping Venezuela evade sanctions on Venezuela's food program which it uses to feed people as he was kidnapped uh
tortured put this put to this huge ordeal. Finally released under the bid administration under a prisoner exchange
right sent back to Venezuela. He's a Colombian national. And now in the aftermath of Trump's kidnapping of
Maduro, Deli deports SAB back to the US for another round of I presume torture
and abuse. Um, you know, looking at it from the outside, it's it's very confusing.
It's confusing, but it's also a capitulation to dictatorial, tyrannical US demands.
There can be no doubt about that.
Uh, Alex Saab was made a citizen by Venezuela. He was Colombian. He was important to help them evade sanctions
which were a crime and to sustain their economy and to provide food to their population through the clap program which I, you know, covered when we were in Venezuela.
And now he's being treated like a dog by the Venezuelan government. are saying he was corrupt, that he was uh collaborating with the US and they just
they sent him away to be tormented in a US prison and he'll probably be used against Nicholas Maduro whose
prosecution was very weak as I helped expose in the beginning uh soon after I mean when I looked at like the charges
against him the US government sort of admitting it's weak so they're going to use Alex Saab as a witness against him most likely
and he's been separated from his family and kids who've been sent to Italy. I think it it it looks bad.
And at the same time, you know, I'm hearing from some sources in Caracus who are Chavista. Yeah, he
was he he was uh getting a little too big for his britches. He wasn't playing ball with the new Deli Rodriguez
administration, which is all about party loyalty and strategic patience to try to like get through this difficult period
and allow some vestigages of Chavismo and the Bolivarian Revolution to survive. Uh, but right now all we can
say is Deli Rodriguez has not prevented a massacre.
The massacre that could have occurred on January 3rd, she has postponed a massacre.
And I I don't know, you know, what that what what what what value is there in postponing the inevitable?
Well, either strategic patience works or it doesn't. But then the question is sort of like what is our role? What is
my role? I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm a I'm a journalist with with opinions. I have my views and you know I
have been really outspoken in opposing all of the financial terrorism against
Venezuela. I think Chavismo was good for the country. It reduced poverty extreme poverty by over 50% was providing social
programs to the for the country through their own resources and they you know were not a threat to the United States.
uh I you know have interacted with their leadership interviewed Maduro I've interviewed uh you know you you've
interacted with their leadership you know what is the position that I should be in right now my for me I'm just going to tell the truth as I see it and as the
facts come in I will report them it is not my job to defend Deli Rodriguez I am not going to be defending Deli Rodriguez
at this point um and and some of the things that are being done in my view are indefensible. But it's also not my
job to attack uh and condemn and call names when I don't fully understand all the complexities that I'm working on understanding.
It's and and what is the job of, you know, the the solidarity movement or the anti-war movement? I don't think that necessarily needs to be their job
either. Their job should be first of all demanding that political prisoners Nicholas Maduro and Celia Flores be
returned to their country or be released from the federal prison in New York where we the US taxpayer actually paying
for them to be held against their will after they were abducted after the
killing of over 30 Cuban officers and the killing of many Venezuelan civilians. That's that's that's that should be the job of the the activists.
The activists don't have to necessarily defend the government in power. Now, the activists should focus on condemning and
con combating the killing of non-combatants in the Eastern Caribbean and near
Venezuelan near Venezuela who are often just fishermen.
uh activists should be focused on opposing the US military, landing V22 ospreys in the middle of Kacus and many
people did come out and protest but uh you know to the ex but I'm not going to
uh be subjected to uh calls for loyalty.
I I'm I'm going to I'm going to continue to investigate. I'm going to continue to to tell the truth. And I think it's very dangerous for Deli Rodriguez to
overcomply and embrace Trump uh more tightly than is necessary.
But uh again, I think right right here at the gray zone, the most important thing is factual journalism more than
rhetoric on Venezuela where Venezuela is concerned.
And there's just a lot we don't know.
Yeah, but I do know I'm putting in print and I think it was all true and well necessarily con and it wasn't like a condemnation of Deli Rodriguez per se.
It shows the kind of pressure that they're under.
Yeah. It's our business. What our government is doing. That's what I think your article focused on. The key figures trying to pull the strings of Venezuela
and how Venezuela responds to that is their business ultimately. You know, uh that's for the shabistas to decide and and the people of Venezuela to decide.
It's our business what our government does to them. And it's as as you've documented, it's decades upon decades of financial uh coercion, subversion, you
know, not just in Venezuela, but across the world. That's what we try to cover.
Yeah. So, right now, Caracus is becoming like a wild west environment for a
free-for-all for MAGA vultures, like the worst swamp creatures.
and mafiosi emerging from Trump's Washington.
And that's the story right now as far as I can tell along with the how how you know the this transformation is taking
place and I'm gaining a lot of insight thing the picture is becoming a little bit more clear to me. The Trump mafia
and through the CIA which is you know going to work out of this giant US embassy which is being refurbished right now. They're moving from cooperation to
total control. So, the picture is becoming clearer to everyone. And at the same time, you know, Rick Scott,
Republican regime change fanatic senator from Florida is pushing for elections.
Um, seeing Alazer push for elections. Qatar has been a factor here uh and not
necessarily in the best way. And you know, I saw them like try like uh uh hype up Maria Karina Machado in some of
their coverage today. And Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator on the uh foreign relations committee in the Senate, has
been pushing Maria Karina Machado as a partisan cudgel. Like she's not someone who you would identify with a progressive Democrat from Connecticut.
She's more like South Florida right-wing Gusana type. but he said she's inspiring and wonderful and that Deli Rodriguez is
a a narco terrorist or I don't know he used some racist term for her and uh you know that highlights where
the Democrats could go if they take control of Congress. I don't know if they'll get the Senate, but they might get the House Oversight Committee and then they'll start looking into all
these corrupt deals and pointing the finger at Deli Rodriguez and demanding elections and they want democracy and then they'll bring in an anti-democratic
figure like Maria Karina Machado. So again, it's important to tell the truth here,
not not to always hold our tongues when uh you know um the only thing that we can
say is that a massacre has been postponed.
So that's my story on Venezuela. I'm sticking to it for now.
Anything else you you think we should cover? You want to add?
Uh no. Silinski honored a Nazi war criminal. What what else is new? What else is new?
Um yeah, the question in Ukraine is whether it will I mean look, Russia's been
taking uh some serious hits inside the country. I mean, Ukraine's drone operation has gotten uh very effective.
Yeah.
And now the question is what is Russia going to do? They've been threatening an escalation. They told Western diplomats to leave Kev, but they've issued a lot of threats before that they haven't
followed through on. So, uh, whatever it is, the decision to prolong the war by sabotaging the mitzvah accords and then
by, uh, rejecting Russia's offers before the war and then by sabotaging the estto talks and then by ignoring other
Putin overshures that were actually disclosed much later as is always the case. Like all the facts we need to have a basic understanding of the reality of a war, they're all they're always disclosed way after the damage is done.
Take for example the OPCW story which we're still learning about so many years later. Yeah.
So now after you know more than four years, Russia's in a I think in a difficult position and I I don't have a
read on on what Putin's going to do but there are people around him who are urging him to escalate which means foremost even more damage for Ukraine
and maybe uh you know trying to uh attack the capital Kev in ways that Russia hasn't before. So, as always,
it's it's a scary moment and um it's it's difficult to predict where it goes next. And some even fear that Russia might take this to NATO states given the
integral role of NATO states in the battle against Russia and providing Ukraine with weapons and intelligence to strike Russian forces and Russian assets inside of Russia.
Yeah. I mean, if this keeps going on, I worry that one of those crazy little Baltic states is going to get hurt.
uh Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, they're heavily involved here. Yeah.
Heavily. And this isn't about winning for the West, the collective West. It's not about winning. There are forces
within the military intelligence apparatus in the US that are addicted to this war because it's the perfect
testing ground. And the, as you mentioned, the drones, these small drone swarms swarms that Ukraine is honing.
They're learning so many lessons from those and they're going to reap profits from that. So, it's not about winning,
it's about keeping Russia weaker than it would be, keeping the war going so they
can profit and they can learn lessons on the battlefield.
And that's pretty that's that's that's enough for them. Yeah. And if they escalate, if they force escalation, well, then it justifies the existence of
NATO, which should not exist, has no real reason to exist.
Jake Sullivan just went on a free press podcast, and I don't have the clip, but this this is a quote. He said, "Intense and deep intelligence partnership
between the US and Ukraine had the effect of supporting the Ukrainians in killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Russians." At a big picture
level, that's a pretty strong story for American statecraft. So, that's what this was all about. It wasn't about defending Ukraine, uh, ensuring its
long-term security stability. It was about killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Russians.
You know who else like to kill and wound hundreds of thousands of Russians? Say it again.
You know who else liked to kill and wound hundreds of thousands of Russians?
Well, people like the Nazis whose he just just honored. Um, but also again the flip side of killing and mooding hundreds of thousands of Russians is
Russia killed and mooded hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and people like Jake Sullivan don't care about that because the goal was just to bleed Russia and Ukrainians aren't on board with it
anymore. Like the average Ukrainian does not support the war. Yeah.
That's why um Julia Mendel came out on the Tucker Carlson show and condemned Zilinsky, his
former press secretary. She said, "I thought he was the we were supposed to make peace at some point here. That's not what this is about anymore. It's
about permanent war shoveling our population into the meat grinder. She can't go back to Ukraine after that interview."
No. Well, she was um she's she was deemed non grata a while ago and this is in my forthcoming book which
my deadline actually is Monday or else they're going to cancel my book contract. So my my book is coming out actually. everybody. Uh so in my
forthcoming book, you know, Julia Julia Mendoles, former press secretary back, you know, years ago when she was first working for Zilinski, she she voiced
some uh sympathy for the people of the Donbas as they were being shelled by the government. And she even though she was working for Zilinski, she was
summoned for police questioning just for voicing sympathy with fellow Ukrainians who were being shelled in the Dawnbas.
So, uh, you know, since leaving Ukraine, she's spoken out more as she does that Tucker interview, which is which I recommend watching. But, yeah, that's
the direction the Ukrainian government under Lensky has gone in. But, as you said, the people are not with us. And that's why you've had to see so many
people being kidnapped uh by Ukrainian forces to be forced to go off to fight because so many people just aren't on
board anymore with this with this proxy war.
Well, the polls show most Ukrainians oppose it. Yeah.
They're not into it. So, into the white van into the Jake Sullivan van. They should call them the
Sullivan vans. It's like the Vulki Bernadot when he was rescuing Jews from the camps and in the white vans. These
are the the Jake Sullivan vans that send people to the front to die.
Um it's absolutely disgusting. and and and and also another major Trump failure if not um
if not uh broken promise and lie to make peace with Russia. It's over. The Russians don't believe in in in Trump or
his negotiating team any any more than Iran does at this point. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, that that was a a great stream.
Uh, we heard from Carrie Bulvant of the Gaza Simude Flotilla. Uh, Wyatt Reed
reporting from Beirut. Media Benjamin reporting from the Code Pink House in DC about Cuba. And, uh, Aaron, thanks for
joining as always. Great job. Uh, subscribe to us on Substack. You'll get everything
we do free in your inbox. Uh, you can support us on Patreon. You can support us at the support button on thegrazone.com where you'll find our
investigations and subscribe to us here on YouTube. Um that's how you'll find out about these
streams and everything else we do. Um so yeah, thanks a lot for joining and we will be back soon. Peace.

Judge says Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center
Associated Press
May 29, 2026

A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations — the latest legal setback for Trump’s efforts to leave his personal mark on the landscape of the nation’s capital.



Transcript

A federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump's name was added to the Kennedy Center illegally. He's also blocked the administration from closing the National Cultural and Art Center for major renovations. US District Judge Christopher Cooper said the Kennedy Center board quote overstepped its statutory bounds by unilaterally adding Trump's name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it. He said the judge also ruled the Kennedy Center's board violated the law in March by deciding to close the facility, calling the decision quote ill-informed and seemingly pre-ordained.

The administration had announced that work would begin in July and last approximately 2 years, but the ruling halts those plans for now. The judge who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama ordered the defendants to remove Trump's name from the institution's facade and any official materials such as digital or physical signs within two weeks. Last year, Trump installed a handpicked board for the Kennedy Center that named him as chairman. Preservation organizations and a Democratic lawmaker challenged the Kennedy Center project in hearings held in April. The Kennedy Center vice president of public relations suggested there would be an appeal.

Not On My Watch New LEGO Video from ‪@AI_iraan‬
Explosive media videos
May 30, 2026 #everything #lego #iran
#everything prophet walked this fire

Every truth cuts through the liar
Whole world watching slaughter daily
Only one says "NOT ON MY WATCH", plainly

We don't bow, we don't sell
We don't buy what you sell

The last wall standing
That's Iran



Transcript

[music] Every prophet walk this fire. Every truth comes through the liar.
[music] Whole world watching slaughtered daily. Only one says not on my watch plainly. We don't bow. We don't sell. We
don't buy what you sell. The last wall [music] standing that she run. Every child buried. What they've done. The
last wall standing that she run. We don't bow [music] to bow. You never run. They slaughtered kids on a schedule.
Call it self-defense.
You ain't bought and sold. The price was a miss. Guys are burning [music] kids dying. Cameas on. [singing] Every government silent pockets full backbone gone.
UAE shaking [music] hands counting that check. We're Muslim like a costume, but they Zionist projects [music] created ISIS. Gave them cash in the trucks, but they never touch Zionist.
Man, what the luck? NBS and NBZ [music] even better with Netanyahu wild out Jolani in your pocket playing Muslim for
a while you created [music] fake Islams put them on the shelf sold them to the world like this the good Muslim self she
[music] been pushing that division but im said one that was always the vision [music] even Christians know if Jesus
walked today first place he flipped tables Tel Aviv no delay
Every prophet walk this fire. [music] Every truth cuts through the liar.
Whole world watching slaughtered daily. Only one says [music] not on my watch.
Plainly we don't bow. We don't sell. We don't buy. Would you sell the last [music] wall spinning that's ain't run.
Every child buries what they done. The [music] last wall spinning that's run. We don't b about we [music] never run.
Wo. Every treaty sign they stabbed the back.
Same play but they used on [music] the native tracks. Billions on propaganda.
Celebrities on payroll. Still couldn't stop the love for Iran and every free [music] soul. Tired of the war was lies.
The same old spin. We ain't your enemy.
We never have been. We we [music] pay with our pockets. Every sanction every price. We bled for this truth. We didn't
think twice. [music] But that empire of hearts, man, it's already here. Every conscious that [music] won't sleep is in your arms frontier.
History will remember
[singing and music]
who stood when it matters. Keep your sanctions.
Keep your propaganda. [music] We the nation of who? We don't bow the asses.
[music]

Iran’s growing leverage exposes emptiness of Trump’s psychological warfare in high-stakes standoff
By Press TV Strategic Analysis Desk
Saturday, 30 May 2026 2:58 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 30 May 2026 2:58 PM ]
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/05/3 ... s-standoff



In the high-stakes theater of modern geopolitics, perception, narrative control, and strategic signaling often outweigh military and diplomatic measures.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump once again took center stage, dishing out a series of outlandish claims about ending the war against Iran, exposing not only the incoherence of US policy but also a deepening reliance on psychological warfare to manipulate markets and project an illusion of victory.

To the casual observer, his statements echoed the confident decrees of a victorious superpower imposing terms. But a sober, reality-based analysis cuts through the performance. His claims are a desperate smokescreen and a frantic attempt to obscure an American military debacle.

The reality is that Iran holds the upper hand, and its leverage is growing by the day. Its strategic position has not only survived but strengthened amid a war designed to cripple it.

Far from being coerced into submission, the Islamic Republic has transformed failed US-Israeli aggression into a crucible of bargaining power, where time, geography, and asymmetric capabilities increasingly constrain Washington’s freedom of action.

The result is a widening chasm between Trump’s rhetorical theater and the undeniable facts on the ground.

The US president’s remarks were no victory lap but a multi-layered psychological operation, a confession of strategic frustration wrapped in the tattered flag of false triumph. To understand the true balance of power, we must dissect the motivations behind his words – and then contrast them with the hard, undeniable realities that Tehran now controls.

Decoding the performance – Trump’s motives unraveled

Before examining Iran’s undeniable ascendancy, we must first understand why the American president would construct a narrative so ridiculously divorced from reality. His motives are not singular but form a tangled web of tactical desperation, each thread revealing a different facet of Washington's strategic exhaustion.

One of Trump’s most consistent, yet chronically underreported, psychological warfare tactics is the timed release of statements. He has repeated this pattern with mechanical precision: as global financial markets brace for the weekend close, he projects an optimistic, war-ending scenario.

Energy markets, particularly oil and shipping insurance, react instantly to signals of escalation or de-escalation in the Strait of Hormuz. Statements issued at critical timing intervals – such as before market closures or during low-liquidity weekends – function as instruments of economic signaling. They can temporarily suppress price volatility or redirect speculative flows, offering Washington short-term leverage in shaping global financial expectations.

By injecting a dose of artificial hope just before the two-day break, Trump buys the US a small but critical window. For 48 hours, the world’s traders, hedge funds, and energy analysts are lulled into a deceptive calm. This prevents a panic-driven spike in oil prices that would otherwise punish American consumers and destabilize the global economy.

More importantly, it gives the US war machine two full days in which it can carry out escalatory actions – military repositioning, covert operations, or new sanctions – without immediate market consequences. By Monday morning, the reality of any weekend action can be managed, spun, or buried beneath a fresh layer of narrative.

This is not statecraft but market manipulation through narrative control. It reveals a regime that fears the economic volatility of its own aggression, a superpower that must deceive markets to avoid paying the price of its belligerence.

A second, more insidious motivation is Trump's attempt to confront Iran with a unilateral declaration of peace. By announcing an "agreement" from his own podium, he seeks to create a political fait accompli. The logic, however flawed, is that Tehran will feel pressure to accept an American-imposed peace rather than be blamed for continuing the war.

This is a fundamental miscalculation of Iranian strategic culture. It assumes that economic pressure alone breaks resolve, ignoring decades of evidence that external threats only strengthen Iran's domestic cohesion and strategic patience. Trump's fait accompli is not a negotiation tactic but a wish cast into the wind, hoping reality will bend to his will.

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@PressTV
Analysis - Without Iran’s signature, Trump’s claims amount to wishful political messaging, not a breakthrough
https://t.co/5Q3PtiKMT0
By Press TV Strategic Analysis Desk
From presstv.ir
1:45 PM · May 29, 2026

Trump's expectations and miscalculations

Every statement from Trump is also a probe. He is testing Iran's reaction on three critical fronts: military, diplomatic, and propaganda. On the military front, will Iran show restraint or a decisive response to provocation? Restraint might be misread as weakness and decisiveness as over-escalation. Iran's calculated, defensive posture so far has confounded American war planners who expected a predictable and emotional reaction.

On the diplomatic front, Tehran's response – whether positive, negative, or conditional – helps Washington calibrate its next move. But here again, Trump has miscalculated catastrophically. Iran has turned every diplomatic probe into an opportunity to reassert its conditions, not to accept America's.

In terms of propaganda, enthusiasm for Trump's remarks among regional allies or opposition from Iran's supporters gives him data. Yet the loudest signal has been global skepticism. Few outside the echo chamber of Washington insiders believe the war is ending on Trump's terms. The world sees the performance for what it is.

At its core, Trump's performance is for domestic and global public opinion. He needs to be seen as the man who started the war and ended it on his own schedule. This projection of decisive superpower authority is necessary to restore the tarnished images of the US, Trump himself, and the Republican Party after an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression that failed to meet any of its declared objectives.

But a narrative repeated a thousand times does not make it true. The gap between Trump's projection of victory and the military reality on the ground is now a chasm. He is not ending the war because he chooses to, but he is seeking an exit because he has failed to win.

Perhaps the most chilling motivation is deception. Excessive optimism about Trump's statements – interpreting them as the definitive end of the war – could lead to a deadly lull in vigilance. By encouraging a belief that hostilities are concluding, Trump may be preparing for a surprise entry into a new, more intense phase of targeted assassinations.

Finally, Trump's use of specific, unusual terms – such as calling Iran's collection in the Strait of Hormuz "fees" – may be implicit signals. This language suggests a coded acknowledgment of Iran's legitimate arrangements. By recognizing that what Iran collects are not arbitrary "fees" but service charges for safe passage and maritime security, Trump may be hinting at a backchannel flexibility he dare not speak openly. In that single word – "fees" – lies the quiet confession of a superpower learning to accept a new regional order it cannot defeat.

The reality on the ground – Why Iran holds the upper hand

Now, set aside Trump's words and look at the objective facts. The very act of the US returning to negotiations is not a sign of its strength but a testament to Iran's power. Washington entered a full-scale war with declared objectives – and achieved none of them.

The US aimed to destroy the Islamic Republic, enact "regime change," and partition Iran to seize its oil resources. It sought, as a fallback, to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities – facilities, enriched materials, and missile-defense power. It also wanted, as a minimal objective, to cripple Iran's economic infrastructure through sanctions and military strikes.

Every single objective failed. Why? Because of the resilience of the Iranian people, the readiness of its armed forces, credible military responses, and a robust system of deterrence that imposed unacceptable costs on any aggressor. The return to diplomacy is not a sign of American magnanimity but the final admission of a war that did not deliver.

After failing to harm Iran, the American war machine attempted to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force. Iran, in response, effectively blocked it. The results of America's attempts are a catalogue of strategic humiliation. Politically, Trump could not form a European, global, or even a regional coalition to reopen the strait. He failed to pass any resolution in the UN Security Council. Despite repeated claims that the US is independent of the strait, he could not ignore it. He was forced back to the political and military arena on Iran's terms.

Militarily, the record is even bleaker. Repeated US naval operations to force the strait open failed, one after another. Each failure was a silent yet consequential victory for Iran's asymmetric naval strategy, a strategy that turns American technological superiority into a liability in confined waters.

One of the most telling indicators of Iran's upper hand is Trump's continuous withdrawal from his own war deadlines. Before the 40-day war, he issued threats with theatrical urgency. During the war, he promised a rapid victory. After the war, he sets ultimatums for negotiations. And repeatedly, he has retreated.

Each retreat is a public admission that the costs of continued war – military losses, strategic overextension, economic blowback – are far higher for Washington than the reputational cost of negotiation. Iran has imposed this reality through sheer strategic patience and the credible threat of pain. The American side has no viable military option left, only a diplomatic one. And in that diplomatic room, Iran is the party setting the terms.

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@PressTV
Analysis - Zero-sum terminus: Iran’s roadmap to ending war on its terms vs. America’s choice between bad and worse
https://t.co/ZMtqWUnToD
By Press TV Strategic Analysis Desk
From presstv.ir
8:55 AM · May 25, 2026

The negotiating table – How US demands have crumbled

The most concrete evidence of Iran's growing leverage is found in the draft text of a potential agreement. Compare the US’s original preconditions for ending the imposed war with what is currently on the table. The difference is clear.

Missile and drone ranges: The US originally demanded strict, verifiable limits on the range of Iran's missiles and drones. This demand is now entirely absent from Trump's recent statements and the current draft text. Iran's conventional deterrent remains intact.

The Resistance Front: Washington demanded Iran disavow and cut all support for the Resistance Front, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and allied groups. This demand has been quietly dropped. In fact, Iran has flipped the script entirely, making the end of hostilities across all resistance fronts, especially in Lebanon, a binding condition for ending America's third imposed war. Tehran now dictates the regional ceasefire terms.

Nuclear capabilities: The US insisted on restricting or dismantling Iran's nuclear capability before any official end to the war. Now, both sides agree to first declare a formal, permanent end to the war, followed by separate nuclear negotiations. This sequence is a profound concession. It formally recognizes that the war itself is a factor in any future nuclear deal, not a precursor to it. Iran has decoupled ending the war from its nuclear program.

60% enriched uranium: The US demanded the transfer of Iran's 60% enriched uranium to American soil for destruction – a non-negotiable red line just months ago. Trump's recent statements did not mention this at all. Instead, he referred vaguely to determining its fate inside Iran, under Iranian supervision. That amounts to capitulation.

Strait of Hormuz: The US demanded unconditional reopening of this strategic waterway, with no role for Iranian oversight. The informal draft now refers explicitly to "Iranian arrangements," including Iran's demand for service fees. Washington has effectively recognized Tehran's right to regulate and charge for passage through its own littoral waters.

Enrichment halt: The US originally demanded a permanent, verifiable halt to all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. Even accepting a 15-to-20-year suspension, as in the initial US proposal, is already a massive retreat from the original demand.

The price of American defeat – What the US must accept

If a final agreement is reached, it will not be a treaty of American triumph. It will be a document that marks, in clear legal language, the end of the era of unchallenged American superpower dominance. The commitments the US would be forced to accept are staggering:

- Ending maritime piracy operations and blockades of Iranian ports, and withdrawing US forces from the region surrounding Iran.

- Unfreezing all Iranian assets held abroad.

- Lifting sanctions and repealing all anti-Iran resolutions.

- Committing to approximately $300 billion for reconstruction and compensation for war damages.

- A binding commitment to non-interference in Iran’s internal affairs, a repudiation of decades of covert CIA operations.

- Ending the Israeli regime’s war on Lebanon and all military offensives against Hezbollah, effectively acknowledging the Resistance Front’s legitimacy.

- Immediate suspension of all illegal sanctions on Iran’s oil, petrochemicals, transport, and financial sectors.

- Formal recognition of the name “Persian Gulf” in the final agreement and a UN Security Council resolution within 60 days of completing the agreement.

Read that list again. Each clause is a humiliation for the so-called global superpower. Collectively, they represent a strategic earthquake. The US war machine would not only be ending a war it started and lost, but it would be legitimizing Iran’s regional role, its nuclear pathway, its military deterrence, and even its naming rights over a body of water.

Perhaps the most significant shift in the current phase is Iran’s transition from reactive resistance to proactive agenda-setting. Rather than merely responding to external proposals, Tehran now shapes key parameters of negotiation, including sequencing, conditions for maritime access, and linkage between military de-escalation and sanctions relief.

When the history of this period is written, it will be a story of how a superpower, blinded by its own arrogance, was forced to the table by a nation it sought to erase. And at that table, it was Iran that wrote the terms.

US Congress quietly voting on legislation to integrate American, Israeli militaries: Report
Saturday, 30 May 2026 10:46 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 30 May 2026 10:46 AM ]
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/05/3 ... es--Report

The US Congress has decided to vote on a sweeping new legislative proposal that integrates the American and Israeli military forces to an unprecedented degree, a report says.

According to the report published on Friday by Responsible Statecraft, the plan to combine the two militaries is embedded in the House of Representatives' version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Section 224 of the NDAA is devoted to the military integration with the name "United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative," according to the report, which said the US has contributed an inflation-adjusted $200 billion in military assistance to Israel since 1948.

"Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of US-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation," the report noted.

While the US and Israel have worked jointly on missile defense, the report said the new congressional provision "would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech."

NDAA also proposes "network integration" and "data fusion," which would, in essence, combine both countries' military data, the report added.

The report explained that if the proposal is approved and fully enacted, it would basically join the American and Israeli military forces at the hip, providing a higher level of military-industrial integration than the US has with any other military force in the world.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/01/3 ... -9-billion
US approves arms sales to Israel worth $6.67 billion and to Saudi Arabia worth $9 billion
The US State Department has approved a massive new series of arms sales to Israel totaling $6.67 billion and to Saudi Arabia worth $9 billion.

If the legislation passes, it would bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the US, far beyond the current network of lobbyists and social media influencers, the report warned.

If approved, the legislation further entrenches the US in Israel’s numerous military and political problems.

While the proposal is yet to be voted on in the House, it comes at a time when a growing number of Americans oppose Israel's actions in the West.

Israel is currently mired in three wars of aggression across the region, namely in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

Furthermore, the Israeli and the US regimes have waged two extremely costly wars on Iran in 2025 and 2026.

In both wars, the Iranian Armed Forces and resistance movements across the region responded by launching daily missile and drone operations targeting locations in the Israeli-occupied territories as well as US military bases and assets across the region.

Furthermore, during the second aggression, Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which resulted in a significant increase in oil prices and its by-products.